


The Lines on Which We Tread

by TheWonderTwins



Series: The Lines on Which We Tread [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF!Stiles, Cookies, Dueling, Elves, Faeries - Freeform, Gen, Ghosts, Introspection, Kidnapping, M/M, Magic, Paintball, Post Season 2, Prompt Week, Spells and Rituals, Sterek moments, Stiles quotes a lot, Vampires, Witches, but they aren't together, damsel!Stiles, he can be both, more to come as the week goes on, mysterious and ominous box, nosferatu - Freeform, shut up, suicidal suggestions, yet - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-28
Updated: 2012-11-07
Packaged: 2017-11-17 05:53:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWonderTwins/pseuds/TheWonderTwins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Increased supernatural activity leads Stiles to believe that there is a reason Beacon Hills is the new Hellmouth, and he's determined to find out what it is. He needs help along the way, though, when shit keeps going down and more often than not, he finds himself relying on Derek and his Pack. </p><p>Written for Stiles Stilinski Prompt Week on Tumblr</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Near the Breaking Point

**Author's Note:**

> _I'm doing another prompt week! Yay! I'm much better prepared for this one though, so I shouldn't be late in updating. Fingers crossed._
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> _Anywho. This challenge actually developed into a prequel for the Sterek fic I'm currently writing, and will start posting... soonish? I have this habit of wanting a lot of it done before I post things, which is why we haven't posted the second story to Dark and Stony Night. We're totally working on it. She's just slow. Blame her. Not me._
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> _Not important! Anyway. Yes. Prompt Week. This first day's prompts are Glass; Dawn. I used both. I do that. It's a thing. Hope you enjoy!_

He pulled up to this house just as the sun was peaking over the horizon. His dad’s cruiser was in the drive, and the kitchen light was on. Yeah. He was in so much trouble. Cutting the engine, Stiles took a deep breath before getting out of the Jeep and facing the music.

It was eerily quiet as he opened the front door, but he knew it would be foolish to try and sneak passed his dad if he was waiting for him. As he stepped into the kitchen, he stopped and looked down when he heard something crunch underneath his shoe.

Glass.

Frowning, he looked a bit closer. It wasn’t thick like glass from a car window would be, and Stiles hadn’t noticed any broken windows on his way in, but he could smell faint traces of whiskey. So a bottle or a glass? Where did it come from?

And where was his dad?

Heart rate picking up, Stiles looked around. There was more glass on the floor and several other things were askew around the kitchen. A chair was knocked over, the salt- and peppershakers were on their sides, the dishes that had been in the sink or on the counters were everywhere, and Stiles found both the broken bottle of whiskey and one of the tumblers on the ground as well. 

Most suspicious of all though, was that the kitchen window was open and something that looked way too much like blood for Stiles’ comfort was smeared on the sill. 

Stiles pulled out his phone as he ran through the rest of the house, knowing instinctively that he wouldn’t find anything, but needing to make sure. He hit redial as he did so.

When Scott’s phone went straight to voicemail, Stiles resisted the urge to chuck his phone across the room. That would not be productive and he needed to remain calm. 

Hands shaking—calm not really in Stiles’ vocabulary—he scrolled through his contacts and hit dial, praying that luck was on his side for once.

“What, Stiles?”

“Thank god; Derek, I need help.”

Maybe something in his voice gave away his desperation, because Derek lost a little bit—not all of it, but a little—of the growl he’d answered the phone with. “What happened?”

“I think something took my dad.”

He heard a car door slam through the phone and the rev of an engine. “I’m on my way, don’t touch anything.”

He’d be more offended by that if he weren’t so busy freaking out. When Derek hung up, Stiles put his phone back in his pocket and paced in the doorway to the kitchen. He was on his way to full panic attack mode; he could feel it. He needed to calm down or else he’d be useless.

He sat, hard, on the floor and put his head between his knees, trying to steady his breathing and make his head stop spinning. He was keeping it at bay, but he could still feel the panic on the edge of tacking over. 

He didn’t even hear the Camero pull up or the front door open, so he jumped a little when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Breathe, Stiles.” Derek ordered quietly.

The alpha gave his shoulder a squeeze and it was shockingly out of character enough that Stiles was able to focus on that rather than the panic clawing at his chest long enough to get his breathing under control. He nodded when he was good, and Derek stood, surveying the kitchen.

“What happened?” He was already sniffing the air.

“I don’t know. I got home and found it like this.”

“How long ago?”

“Right before I called you.”

Derek frowned. “Why were you out all night? It’s a full moon—“

“Exactly. I was helping Scott. It was his first full moon without Allison. He… wasn’t handling it so well.”

Derek very clearly had an opinion about that, but he kept it to himself, probably out of deference to the situation. He stepped cautiously into the kitchen, instead, and began a closer inspection. When he got to the windowsill, he sneezed.

Stiles was way too worried to laugh; in fact, he figured that was an important find. “What is it?”

“I’m… not sure.” Derek’s frowned deepened. He took another whiff of the windowsill, sneezed again, and stepped back a bit. “I don’t know what this is, but it’s not… human.”

“Thus why I called you instead of the police.”

“You knew?”

“No.” Stiles sighed. “But when is anything in this town as simple as a home invasion?”

Derek shifted as if uncomfortable, but covered it up quickly by adjusting his jacket. He strode passed Stiles, headed to the door. Stiles was quick to follow.

“Where are you going?”

“Checking to see if it left a trail.”

They swung around to the other side of the house, where the open window was, and Derek began his investigation again. He prowled along the side of the house, scenting the air and being kind of overtly wolf-like, but Stiles didn’t care one iota so long as he found his dad.

After a few long minutes, Derek nodded and turned to Stiles. “I can follow him.”

“But…?” Stile always knew when a but was coming.

Derek’s frown deepened. “I’m not familiar with what took him.” He pulled out his phone and hit a number, calling someone on his speed dial, apparently. “What smells so strongly of magic that I sneeze every time I get near its scent?” 

Stiles did not possess crazy werewolf hearing so he didn’t know what was being said on the other line or who it was. Stiles felt a little out of the loop. Derek always came to him with research questions. 

Derek growled, annoyed. “Obviously. What _kind_ and how do I _kill it_?”

He snapped his phone shut without a goodbye after getting whatever reply he was waiting for. He shoved the phone in his pocket and turned to Stiles. “Do you have any pure iron?”

“Faeries? Seriously?” Stiles muttered while thinking. Where did he stash it? “Yeah, I’ve got a fireplace poker under my bed, its—“

But Derek was already leaping up to his window. He went in, got the poker, and came back out in less than ten seconds. He pushed it into Stiles’ hands and ordered him to follow with a nod of his head. “Try to keep up.”

Derek took off, not going full werewolf speed because there would be no way Stiles could keep up with that, but he did go pretty fast. Stiles kept up though. Much like his favorite wizard detective, Stiles ran regularly because he never knew when he’d have to do it to save his freaking skin. Or someone else’s. So, Stiles matched Derek’s pace, following him and his super sniffer beyond the paved streets and into the untamed forest.

Stiles did not ask why Derek allowed him to come. Maybe he needed back up, maybe he didn’t feel it was worthwhile to argue, maybe he realized that this was Stiles’ _father_ , and nothing was going to stop him from getting him back. Either way, Stiles didn’t care, because he was following Derek into the woods towards a faerie that had, for whatever fuck-off reason, kidnapped his dad.

Such shit would not stand.

When Derek slowed, Stiles followed. They were well into the woods, and Stiles was a little winded. Ok, a lot winded, but he pushed through it because his father was in trouble and he was running on adrenaline until he was safe.

“What’s the plan?” Stiles asked, barely loud enough for Derek to hear even with his wolfy powers.

Derek pointed to a large tree that appeared to have a sizable hole in its trunk. Big enough for a person to fit through easily. Stiles couldn’t see what was in the hole, but he got the gist. Their faerie was in there with his dad. 

Derek grabbed the poker to get his attention again; when he had it, he looked at the poker then up at Stiles, questioning. It clearly read, “Do you know what to do with this?” without Derek having to actually speak.

Stiles nodded, face serious. Normally, he’d have a sarcastic comment, but not this time. The need for quiet was too important.

Giving a nod of his own, Derek silently wolfed out—not the full alpha form—and led the way in. It was very dark, too dark to be natural. The hole was also bigger than the tree. This whole thing reeked of magic and Stiles wondered how Derek managed to keep the sneezing at bay.

Finally, a few cautious yards in, light returned. Faint, soft, flickering light. Stiles could see a large room made small by the wall-to-wall, floor to ceiling shelves that held lots and lots of glass bottles and jars. Within the glass, Stiles saw the light source. Each bottle or jar held a small, wispy thing that emitted a faint light. Add the hundreds—thousands?—of them together and the room was well lit. Disturbingly, whatever was in the glass moved like it had mind and purpose. Not just aimless floating, though a few did that, but others were fast, darting in and around their confines in an agitated manner.

Stiles wanted to ask “What are those?”, but he held his tongue. Now was not the time to satisfy his curiosity. 

When a soft giggling filled the air around the room, Stiles and Derek both flinched.

“You’re here for the protector, for the guardian, for the father.” It giggled. Again. “You cannot have him.”

There wasn’t a source yet for the tiny voice, so Stiles shifted. Standing back to back with Derek, they both surveyed the room.

“Ooh, and you brought me a present!” The giggling really had to stop for Stiles’ sanity. “The investigator, the clever tongue, the boy who runs—“

“You think I’m going to let you name me thrice? Not much of an investigator if I don’t how stupid that is.” Stiles interrupted her.

The giggling developed into full cackling, and Stiles wasn’t really sure he liked it any better. “Oh, but you are the clever one, aren’t you.” She finally manifested. A small glowing waif of a girl, but Stiles was so not deceived. 

Derek snarled at her, but didn’t launch himself at her, which Stiles half expected him to. Derek seemed to realize that he couldn’t reach her and chose to stay at Stiles’ back rather than try to pursue her. Stiles was grateful. He felt a thousand times more confident with the alpha at his back.

“Where is my dad?” Stiles asked, deliberate, annunciating each word clearly.

“I do not wish to tell you.” She smiled, flying just out of reach. 

“Where is my dad?” Stiles had done his research, but he was not sure how much could actually be relied upon. There were so many different types of sihde and each one had their own special quirks. Hopefully this little bit was true.

She hissed at him, no longer giggling. “I will not give him to you!” She sent a bolt of light at them and Stiles was really ok with never finding out what it was supposed to have done, so he sliced through the air with the iron poker, dispersing the spell. She stared at him, seemingly shocked, and then snarled.

“Where is my—“ Stiles had to stop to shout “Duck!” To Derek as she hurled another bolt of light, this one at the werewolf. Stiles dispersed it same as the last, swinging over Derek’s head. So interrupted, he wasn’t sure if his thrice repeated questioning would work.

She smirked at him, smug.

“Fine. You wanna play? Let’s play.” Stiles glared at her, but he also had a smirk of his own. “Derek, how’s your pitching arm?”

He sensed from the way Derek shifted his stance that the alpha had caught on to his plan pretty quick. “Let’s find out. Batter up.”

Lighting fast, they split up. Stiles could easily protect himself from any spells she tossed his way and Derek was crazy fast. He should be able to dodge easily enough. When they faced each other, Derek was already lobbing one of the glass jars at Stiles. Smirking, he swung the iron poker and shattered the glass jar, releasing the trapped wisp inside and it gave off a trill of joy.

The faerie was pissed. She hurled bolt after bolt, but Stiles either deflected or Derek dodged. When she lobbed a spell at Derek, Stiles reached behind him and picked up another glass bottle, tossing it and then smashing it with then poker. He had to do it with the poker, just throwing it on the ground wouldn’t be effective, and he needed the power of the iron to break through the faerie magic binding the glass together.

“You want me to stop!” He shouted. “Give me my father; alive, and intact! Or so help me, I will break every last bottle in this termite infested hole you call a hideout.”

He was aware that he already had about half a dozen small cuts oozing blood from flying shards, but he didn’t care. If it took breaking every bottle in here and tearing himself to shreds, he’d do it.

She hissed again. “Deceived! Did not warn, did not say...” She seemed to be more rambling to herself now than talking to either of them, but Stiles didn’t care. He was growing impatient. He took a mighty swing and smashed an entire ten-foot swath of glass in one go. This time the faerie keened. “Take! Take and go!”

Stiles’ dad appeared, unconscious at their feet. Derek hoisted him up into a fireman’s carry and led the way out, checking to make sure that Stiles followed.

When they were out of the lair, there was a weird change in pressure that actually made Stiles’ ears pop. When he turned around, the tree—the entire tree!—was gone. Poof. Like it was never there.

“Come on.” Derek growled. He clearly wanted away from the faerie and this part of the forest as fast as possible.

When they made it back to the Stilinski house, Derek deposited the sheriff on the couch and then whirled on Stiles. 

“Thank you.” Stiles said before Derek could start whatever glare-tastic rant he was about to go on.

Derek frowned, but it wasn’t his normal angry frown. More like confused, which Stiles thought was a little ridiculous. Then it occurred to Stiles, that Derek probably hadn’t been thanked in a non-sarcastic way in a while. 

“You should get those cleaned up.” He grunted. “Let me know if any of them are too deep.”

Stiles nodded. He washed the cuts in the sink and didn’t find many that were more than purely superficial. There was one in the webbing between his right thumb and forefinger that was painful and one above the corner of his left eyebrow that seemed like it needed more attention.

He grabbed a paper towel and held it to his head. Cuts on the head always bled more, making them look way more serious than they actually were, though this one hurt like a bitch. He went back into the living room to check on his dad, paper towel firmly in place to keep blood off the floor and furniture.

“Let me see.” Derek didn’t quite growl, but Stiles felt that his bedside manner could still use a little work. 

“It’s fine, dude. Just a scratch.”

Derek grabbed him roughly by his shirts and hauled him up, giving Stiles his exasperated face. Stiles rolled his eyes, but removed the paper towel. Derek looked at it closely. “This could need stitches.”

“Fabulous. I hear chicks dig scars.”

“Do you want me to take care of it?”

“If by take care of it you mean put a butterfly bandage on it, then sure.” Stiles said. He didn’t want stitches. If he was lucky, the butterfly bandages would do just fine.

“It should be cleaned too.”

“Fine.” Stiles led Derek to the kitchen where the first aid kit was stashed. Derek dug through it until he found what he was looking for, then he put it back where Stiles drug it out of. “Why are you doing this?” Stiles flinched as his mouth ran away from him. Sure, draw attention to the uncharacteristic behavior, good job.

“You want me to leave?” Derek just asked calmly, not even looking at him as he opened the package of butterfly bandages.

“No.” Stiles admitted. “I was just… wondering.”

Derek didn’t say anything as he cleaned the cut and put the butterflies on. Finally, he looked at Stiles and said, “You got hurt because I brought you with me.”

“I wouldn’t have let you go without me.” Stiles countered.

Derek shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“I’m not made of glass.”

Derek just gave him a look. “Have I ever treated you like you are?”

Recalling the number of times he’d been slammed into walls or steering wheels, or shoved and pulled around by the werewolf in front of him, Stiles had to admit, that no. Derek didn’t treat him like he was made of glass. He shook his head.

“You’re not glass, but you are… human.” For a second Stiles thought Derek was going to end that statement differently but changed his mind at the last second. It was a little confusing and piqued Stiles’ curiosity, but the alpha continued before he could speak. “You can’t heal like we can; it’s just a fact Stiles.”

“I know. But that hasn’t stopped me before and won’t stop me in the future.”

Derek grumbled. “I’m aware. Just… when it happens,” he gave Stiles a pointed look, “let one of us help.”

Stiles nodded figuring it for a Pack thing. Taking care of the wounded and weak, all that jazz. Though, he wasn’t sure if he was still part of Derek’s pack after Scott’s break from the Pack. Thoughts for another time, though.

“What do I tell him?” Stiles asked, changing the subject.

Derek finally moved away from Stiles’ space and looked over at the sleeping sheriff. “If he remembers… tell him what happened.”

“There’s a chance he won’t remember?” Stiles asked.

Shrugging, Derek made his way to the front door. “Hard to tell with the sihde.”

Just before he left, Stiles grabbed his shoulder lightly. “Really, Derek. Thank you.”

Derek just nodded stiffly and walked back to his car.

Stiles closed the door when he could no longer hear the Camaro’s engine and set to cleaning up the kitchen. 

The sheriff woke about half an hour later. “Ugh, my head.”

“How’re you feeling?” Stiles asked already handing him advil and glass of water.

“Hungover.” He mumbled taking the advil and water with a nod of thanks.

“Remember anything?”

“It’s… a little hazy. Something… did I break something? I remember broken glass.” His father noticed the cut on his head. “Stiles! What happened?”

“I tripped. Hit my head at Scott’s. Don’t worry. Mrs. McCall patched me up.” Stiles made a mental note to ask Mrs. McCall to cover for him if his dad asked. “Came home once she said I didn’t have a concussion and found you asleep. The whiskey must’ve fallen at some point because it was broken on the floor. Don’t worry, I cleaned it up already.”

“Thanks.” His dad said numbly, clearly still a little out of it.

Stiles shrugged like it was no big deal. “You should head up to bed. You still have a few hours before you have work.”

When he nodded, Stiles helped his dad to his feet and made sure he made it to the bed intact before hitting the sack himself, exhausted.


	2. Duality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles winds up as Scott's second in a duel and cannot be blamed for the structural inadequacy of park benches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Day Two! Bench; High Noon. Again I used both. Like I said, it's a thing. Enjoy!_

They were at the park near the entrance to the public portion of the reserve. It was stupidly hot and bright and Stiles had had it to about _here_ with this freaking town and its tendency towards supernatural mischief. 

So no, they weren’t here for frolicking, nor were they here for anything mundane like a picnic. _No!_ That would be too normal for their lives. Instead, Stiles and Scott were here because Scott had stumbled ass first into what was apparently the teenage-elf—no really, elves—equivalent of make-out point. Some hotheaded elf had taken offense at being interrupted and challenged Scott to a duel. Legit, off came the gloves, smacked him across the face, high noon, twenty paces, duel! Except instead of pistols it would be swords—or claws, in Scott’s case. Because that’s how gentlemen do it, apparently.

So, here he was, sitting on this uncomfortable ass, wobbly bench at noon as Scott’s second, and as such, should Scott fail to survive, Stiles was expected to take his wolfy place. The only up side to this was that the hothead’s second was his girlfriend, and she was actually pretty cool.

“So, Stiles?” She had a delicate voice and an amused glint in her eye.

“Yeah?” She’d told him her name, but it was really long and sounded impossible to pronounce. He decided to call her Leeloo instead, just on principle. She’d laughed and agreed.

“I’d like to apologize in advance for Avorndir. I’m pretty sure he won’t actually kill your friend.”

Stiles scoffed. “He’ll have a hell of a time with it if that’s his intent. Werewolves are hard to keep down.”

She nodded sagely. “We heard this area had a pack, but we didn’t realize they’d be so… young.”

“Brings teenage angst to whole new levels, let me tell you.” Stiles muttered. “Would he have challenged an adult?”

“Of course not. Avorndir is prideful, but he isn’t a moron. Usually.”

“Sounds like someone I know.”

“Not helping, Stiles!” Scott yelled as he dodged a swing to his midsection.

“Sorry, dude. I left my pom-poms in the Jeep.”

Leeloo laughed again. “Oh, I suppose we should try to be a bit more supportive.”

“Atta boy, Scott.” Stiles clapped a few times when his friend made the elf jump back to avoid getting sliced. “You guys visit this area a lot?”

“Not terribly often.” Leeloo shook her head. “Lovely form, darling!”

“So why come by if you knew there were wolves–You’re ears are pointy right now too, Scott, try not to get distracted—I mean, I thought it was common knowledge not to test territory?”

“Oh it is.” She agreed. “We had no intention of testing your territory. We thought—nice thrust, but up and to the left next time—that we were safe and hidden. Our own little pocket of space, as it were.”

“Just a flesh wound, walk it off! What do you mean, your own pocket of space?”

“We had a ward up. It was supposed to prevent anyone from stumbling across us—it’ll heal, focus on your target!—but we obviously didn’t take _you_ into consideration when we set it up.”

“Me?” Stiles frowned. 

“Mhmm. You.” She eyed him quizzically. “Are you unaware? Interesting.”

“What’s interesting? Unaware of what?”

She shook her head. “No, can’t tell you. There are rules to this kind of thing.”

“But—“ Stiles was cut off when a particularly vicious snarl from Scott distracted him. His friend was now sporting a long gash from hip to knee that bled pretty freely. “Ouch. Focus, Scott! You can do it!”

“I would tell you Stiles, but I really can’t. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself.” Leeloo did seem genuinely sorry.

“Ok, why can’t you tell me?”

“The elders… they would not approve. There are very strict rules among my kind for dealing with… yours.” She rubbed her long, elegant fingers through his buzzed hair affectionately. “Also, you should perhaps step in before your friend does actually die.”

Stiles looked back to the duel. Avorndir was closer to Stiles than Scott was, but he could still see that Scott had several more cuts, some deep, others already healing, but he looked rather exhausted. “Ready to tap out, buddy?”

As Scott nodded, Stiles motioned for Leeloo to stand for him. She acquiesced without comment and Stiles got off the bench as well, stooping to get his hands around it. As Avorndir turned to face Stiles, ready to attack his new opponent, Stiles hefted the bench and swung it as hard as he could, connecting soundly with the side of the elf’s surprised face, knocking him unconscious.

“Oh, Stiles that was truly fantastic.” Leeloo actually laughed and applauded. “I yield, the day is yours. What do you claim as your prize?”

Stiles set the bench down and blinked in surprise. He got a prize? Ok. That was pretty cool. “Uh… In the spirit of friendship, a way to contact you?”

She smiled, pulled out an, honest to god, cell phone from a pocket and gave him her number for his own. Once that was done, she crouched down next to Avorndir, muttered a few words in a language Stiles didn’t know, and vanished with her boyfriend.

“Dude.” Scott looked at the cell phone still in Stiles’ hand. “Did you just get a freaking elf’s number?”

“Yes. That does appear to be what just happened.”

“And you seriously took that guy out with a _park bench?_ ” 

Stiles shrugged. “I’ve been working out a bit, and it honestly wasn’t that heavy.”

“Wasn’t it bolted down or something?”

“No, actually. I was thinking it was going to topple over on us the entire time; those things are not safe.”

“Clearly.”


	3. Twilight Did Not Prepare Me for This Shit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For once, Scott gets to say "I told you so"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt is Library; Twilight, and I promise the book did not inspire this chapter... beyond the title..._

It was getting late by time Scott had exhausted his patience for old book smell. Stiles heard his shuffling and shifting increase exponentially as the sun sank lower and lower. He was in his groove though, so Stiles tried to ignore it and kept reading. 

They’re in the older books section of the public library a few towns over from Beacon Hills. It was the closest library of any real size, and Stiles wanted to get his hands on a few of their older tomes. However, since the books were so old, he wasn’t allowed to actually take them with him, so he and Scott—because the kid had insisted that Stiles not go anywhere alone—were in the library reading and taking as many notes as possible. 

“Dude, can we please just…?” Scott gestured to the exit.

“I’m almost done with this chapter.” Stiles said off-handed, writing furiously in his own short hand. “Don’t you want to know why we live in what is quickly becoming the Hellmouth?”

Scott groaned and didn’t answer. Well, that was fine. Stiles wanted to know and Stiles was the driver, so Scott could suck it.

“Library’s closing boys.” The blind, old librarian squawked from behind her desk. 

Scott and Stiles both nodded politely to her and started gathering books. As they went to put them back on the shelf—because that was just polite—Scott leaned over and whispered, “She creeps me out, man.”

“So do clowns and cherubs.” Stiles commented blandly as he put a book back on the shelf.

Scott smacked him on the arm, “I’m serious. She smells funky.”

“That’s rude, Scott. She’s old, like crypt-keeper old, she’s going to smell strange.” Stiles double-checked to make sure he had all his notes in his bag before moving towards the exit. He waved politely to the ancient librarian as Scott opened the door.

Not that he’d tell Scott, because he could be contrary when he wanted to be, but the way the old biddy stared at them as they left did kinda creep Stiles out a bit too.

The sky was just barely lit with the last dying slivers of the sun as Stiles and Scott headed to the Jeep. It was at the back of the lot because they’d gotten here when the library was fairly busy, so they walked quickly. 

“Tell me we don’t have to come back here any time soon?”

Stiles threw his bag in the back and sighed, “I’m coming back tomorrow.”

“I have work—“

“I know.” Stiles climbed into the driver’s side. “You don’t need to babysit me, Scott. The old lady isn’t going to eat me.”

Scott wrinkled his nose. “I swear she didn’t smell right.”

“Old people smell is rarely attractive.” Stiles drove out of the parking lot and hit the highway sedately. 

Once he’d dropped Scott off at his place, Stiles drove home and busted out his notes. He was determined to figure out why Beacon Hills was attracting so much supernatural activity, and set about copying his notes to his computer so that he’d have a better record of them and to help him retain what he’d learned.

Which wasn’t much. 

There had been a large number of books and very little in the way of useful information, but he’d only gotten through half the stack, so he’d top of the Jeep’s tank and head back tomorrow while Scott was at work. A few hours of going over what he’d written down made Stiles sleepy, so he set his alarm, crawled into bed, and fell asleep.

When he woke up, he showered, and got ready for the day in the small bathroom across the hall from his room. When he went back to his room to get his notes, he nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Derek.

“Gah! Bit early in the day for heart attacks, don’t you think?” Stiles rolled his eyes when Derek didn’t respond. “What do you need?”

“Isaac said you’re going to a library. Alone.”

Stiles stared at him blankly for a minute to process that. “Uh… ok… Scott told Isaac, Isaac told you, now you’re here, why are you here?”

Derek continued to glare at him. “You shouldn’t go alone, Stiles.”

“So you’re, what? Coming with me? Dude, I can handle some books. At worst I’m going to get a paper cut or two.”

“It isn’t safe right now.”

“No shit, Sherlock. That’s why I’m doing this research to begin with. The library isn’t even in Beacon Hills, I’ll be totally fine.”

Derek shifted, like he still wasn’t comfortable letting Stiles go alone, which was just weird. Sure they’d done some mutual life saving, and he had helped when that faerie took his dad two weeks ago, but Stiles got the impression that Derek didn’t actually like him all that much. Why would he subject himself to a whole day of his company?

“Surely you have something more important to do than chaperoning my ass to the library.” Stiles suggested. 

He’d clearly hit the mark with that one because Derek actually twitched. It was small and if Stiles hadn’t been looking right at him, he’d have missed it, but there was obviously something that Derek was not doing in order to tag along today.

Stiles smiled. “It’s ok, dude. Go do whatever wolfy thing that currently demands your attention, I’ll be a-OK on my own.”

Sighing, Derek headed to the window. He paused before leaving though, “If anything happens—“

“I’m sure you’ll hear my girlish screams all the way from here.”

Derek rolled his eyes and left. 

Free of werewolf cling-ons, Stiles tossed his bag in the passenger seat of the Jeep and headed out. He stopped at the station first to share bad coffee with his overworked dad and to tell him he was going back to the library. The sheriff told him to drive safe and have fun before waving him off.

He reached the library around noon, so Stiles parked under the shade of one of the trees dotting the edge of the lot in hopes that his Jeep wouldn’t be stifling hot when he was ready to leave. He grabbed his bag, locked the car, and power walked to the doors, eager to get started. 

The same old librarian was there and she helped him find the books he hadn’t gotten to last time, pushing a squeaky cart to carry them all.

“You seem to be a very enthusiastic researcher.” She remarked calmly as they perused the shelves.

“It’s kinda my thing.” He agreed.

She smiled. “Not so much for your friend, I take it?”

“Nah, he doesn’t really have the patience for it.” Stiles was a little edgy. She was just an old lady, probably a little starved for conversation, but she was giving Stiles the heebie-jeebies. 

She nodded sagaciously. “A common affliction of youth.”

She left Stiles to his research then, and he buried himself in it rather than focus on the librarian.

He was absorbed in a book about ley lines and the influx of weirdness that surrounded them when his stomach growled loudly. He pulled out a baggie of trail mix from his backpack and munched, careful not to make much noise or leave crumbs. He was being super stealthy and everything!

Doesn’t stop the librarian from noticing though, and she gave him a pointed look that bordered on downright hostile until he put the snack away and wiped his hands clean with a napkin. He nodded in apology and sank lower in his chair as he continued to read.

He spent several hours combing through the book about ley lines and taking extensive notes. Stiles believed that this was a viable theory and he wanted as much information as he could get. He’d look up more online once he got home, but the book had a lot of information too. He devoured it happily.

“Young man. The library is closing.” The elderly librarian was smiling down at him.

Looking up, surprised, Stiles saw that it was later than he thought. Smiling sheepishly at the librarian, Stiles gathered his things and helped her put the ancient books back where they belonged. “Sorry, I guess I lost track of time.”

“It happens.” She smiled.

Reassuring was not a word Stiles would associate it with though. Creepy was. Yeah, creepy was good. He waved goodbye and made his way to the Jeep in the otherwise empty lot. 

The small hairs on the back of his neck were standing at attention as he unlocked his door. Stiles looked up, but there weren’t any clouds in the twilight sky, so it couldn’t be something mundane like he was about to get struck by lightning. Stiles felt like his skin was crawling and he was officially freaked out.

He tossed his bag into the Jeep and was about to get in, himself, when something grabbed his ankle and pulled. Hard. 

With a startled shout, Stiles went down, nearly hitting his head on the Jeep on his way. Instinctively, he kicked out to try to dislodge whatever had him, but the grip tightened and refused to let go. He looked down to see what had him and saw an ugly-ass, decrepit hand attached to an equally horrific looking arm pulling him into the gutter. 

“Jesus Christ!” Stiles scrabbled for purchase on something, anything, but his lower body was now fully in the gutter and he was losing this fight. 

Two snarls erupted from behind him and if he could have, Stiles would have looked around to see who it was, because he was pretty positive that that was the sound an angry werewolf made and it would be nice to know who’s name to call.

Too late though. He was pulled fully into the gutter just as he saw Isaac’s wolfed out face.

Stiles hit damp concrete with a thud and groaned, wind knocked out of him. The thing began to drag him away, further into the sewer and his probable death. 

This was so not okay!

There was almost no light, so Stiles was still unable to get a good look at what had him, but he had an idea or two. He really, really hoped he was wrong though, because if he was right, and if Isaac and whoever else didn’t get here soon, Stiles was beyond screwed.

He was tugged around a corner into a nook that looked clawed into the stone rather than structured just as the noise of Isaac and the other wolf trying to get into the gutter after him echoed. Isaac might be able to fit, but Stiles was betting that neither Scott nor Derek, or even Peter, would be able to fit into the slim hole.

Thoughts of who was coming was erased from his train of thought as he stopped moving and a weight of a body pressed up against his own. Whatever it was, reeked. Stiles gagged from the stench so close to his face. The thing no longer had a hold of his ankle, but now had its hands on his shoulders.

Stiles shut his eye tight and hunched his shoulders to hide as much of his neck as possible.

A low, grating laugh echoed above him. “Smart human. Have you figured it out yet?”

Stiles did not respond. Could not respond. If he opened his mouth, he would make himself vulnerable; if he moved his head, he’d expose his neck and make himself vulnerable. Instead, Stiles kicked as hard as he could, trying to get the thing off of him.

It laughed again, pressing more fully against him. “Do not waste your strength.”

Suddenly, Stiles was lifted and shoved against a wall. Idly, his brain supplied him with images of Derek doing that, but this was a far, far less pleasant experience. His face was pressed roughly against the wall, exposing his throat.

“You smell… different. Exotic.” It made a pleased rumble. “It will be difficult to take our time… savor it…”

Stiles did not hold back the pained scream that bubbled up when he felt two sharp pricks bite into his shoulder, just above his collarbone. The damn thing—vampire, his mind supplied, probably nosferatu given the level of yuck—was lapping at his blood with a leathery tongue and Stiles wanted to hurl, sick with fear and anger and disgust.

It pulled away after only a few seconds. “Wonderful. Been so long since we’ve had such a fine wine.” 

Stiles was pushed to the ground and the vampire dragged him further into the dark. He felt lightheaded, more so than he should given the fairly small amount of blood he’d lost. His head started swimming and he groaned.

“That’s the venom.” The vampire said casually. “You have a few minutes left of consciousness. Try to enjoy it.”

Stiles fought the overwhelming dizziness and pulled his phone out of his pocket and made sure the GPS was on and then sent a quick text.

_TO: Bro Thief  
8:34pm_

_Nosferatu. Been bit. GPS on. UN: St1l3s PW: sourw0lf_

He shoved the phone back in his pocket just before slipping into unconsciousness.

When he woke up, he blinked a few times in confusion. It looked like he was in a library. There were books everywhere. Old looking books. He was confused. Why was he in a library?

He was also in a cage. Awesome.

Self assessment time. The bite on his collarbone had already stopped bleeding and was scabbing over a bit. It was a bit tender though, so he left it alone. As he cataloged what hurt, he found four more bites; one on his left bicep, one on his right shoulder just above the shoulder blade, and two more along his collarbone. None of them were bleeding from what he could tell, but they all hurt, and this over-shirt was pretty much a goner. Other than a few minor scrapes—that he would clean fiercely, damn sewers—from being dragged on the ground, and a small bump on the head from being slammed against a wall, he was intact. How long had he been out?

Taking the time to really look around, Stiles saw that he was underground, probably a renovated section of the sewer that the vampires were using as their nest. The books were on old but sturdy shelves along one wall, and Stiles kinda really wanted to get his hands on them. There was a large and disturbingly stained table in the middle of the room that had close to a dozen chairs around it with room to spare. Stacked on the table were plates and cups and candlesticks and body parts; Stiles couldn’t tell if they were animal or human at this point.

Looking for the exit, Stiles swept his gaze away from the table and the nightmares that lurked there. Along the wall behind his cage, Stiles saw chains and hooks and more blood. “Oh my god, I’m gonna die.”

“Not yet. And not for long.” It was that damned librarian! She and about ten nasty looking, misshapen vampires walked into the room from the only door—sort of, it was more like a large hole in the wall—he’d seen so far. 

“The bites. Am I going to turn?” Stiles asked. The very idea scared the shit out of him, but it was important to know whether or not the others were going to have to kill him when they got here.

The freaky librarian smiled. “Unfortunately, it takes more than a few bites to turn you.”

“Are we talking, like, two or three or…” he looked at all of them, really looked, and thought about the limited research that he’d done about vampires. Swallowing audible, Stiles answered his own question. “You have to drain me first.”

“Oh, I like you. Clever youngsters are so hard to come by.” She stepped closer to his cage and the others moved to the table, devouring the meat in a purely animalistic fashion.

“I’m a real diamond in the rough, I know, but that’s so not going to happen.” Stiles told her, forcing confidence into his voice.

“You think your little furry friend can help you?” She shook her head. “He couldn’t even tell what I was.”

“He will soon, if he doesn’t already know.” Stiles snapped. 

Again, she shook her head. “Just think about what I’m giving you. Eternal life—“

“As a fetid corpse.”

“Increased speed and strength—“

“Increased B.O.”

“A fabulous library—“

“Of tomes moldier than you.”

She grinned. “Come now Stiles, even you must realize what power there is in knowledge. Think about it: ancient knowledge at your fingertips, answers to your questions, more power.”

“Wouldn’t you know it, I lost my library card while I was being dragged into a sewer. I’ll have to check them out later.” 

She laughed. “We don’t gift just anyone with this—“

“Save the sales pitch. This isn’t the first bite I’ve turned down, so don’t think you’re going to change my mind.”

She frowned at him sympathetically. “We’re not giving you a choice, Child. It’ll happen whether you want it to or not.”

“Now, now. If anyone’s going to Bite the boy, it should really be me.” Peter smirked from the entrance, “I saw him first.” 

Peter and Isaac had crept up on the nest and Stiles would be sure to ask them later how’ they’d managed that, but he was just too damn glad to see them to care—even if it was Creeper McCreeperson. 

“Dude,” Stiles quipped, “you can’t call dibs on my humanity.” He could barely hear himself over the sound of snarling vampires, but he knew Peter could hear him by the way he smirked.

“Mongrels!” The vampire hissed. She transformed before his eyes from a little old lady, into a creature of nightmares. Her flesh pealed from her face to hang loosely from her skull, the rest of her skin withered as bones shifted and claws grew, and her eyes developed the white sheen of death that did nothing to lessen the terrifying fury within. 

The fight that ensued was brutal. There were eleven vampires and only two wolves, but that didn’t stop them from beating the ever-living crap out of the vamps. Stiles watched from his cage, grudgingly impressed, as Isaac snapped the arm off a vampire and used it to stake another in the chest, leaving it twitching helplessly on the floor. The beta then grabbed the remaining arm of the other vampire and used it to shove him head first into the wall, smearing brain matter and bone fragments on the, now cracked, stone. Peter was even more vicious, not that Stiles expected less. He used claws to tear the head off of a vampire trying to bite him, leaving the lower jaw attached to the neck. He grabbed the next closest vampire and threw him a good twenty feet, perfectly aimed to land on one of the meat hooks, impaled through his chest.

Stiles lost track of the wolves after that as the vampires figured out that swarming was a better strategy than dying horribly. He could still hear them growling though, so they weren’t dead yet, though Stiles worried that if they didn’t get out of the rotting mosh pit that that would change fairly quickly.

Another snarl, deeper, louder, and a hell of a lot angrier echoed through the room suddenly, making the vamps freeze momentarily. The lumbering tower of Derek in full Alpha mode stepped free of the shadows and dove into the mass of bodies, rending and shredding without mercy.

Mesmerized by the scene, Stiles didn’t notice at first when the cage door opened. It wasn’t until a clawed hand dragged him out roughly by the scruff of his neck that Stiles realized that the librarian hadn’t joined the massacre. She clutched him tightly, one arm wrapped vice-like around his arms and waist, the other baring his throat, her teeth hovered over his neck and the wretched breath wafted coldly across his skin. 

“You’re a freaking librarian, didn’t you go through the Bad Touch seminars?” He grunted out, unable to stop his snark.

“You will truly make the next few centuries very entertaining.” She commented, licking a wet strip from collarbone to ear.

“Oh, god; I’ll wash but I’ll never be clean.” Stiles whimpered.

Another snarl from Derek meant that he was probably finished with the other vampires and had noticed Stiles’ current predicament. He couldn’t tell for sure, being pressed up against the nosferatu librarian as he was, but he hoped.

“Come any closer, and I’ll tear his throat out.” She said conversationally, casually, like she was commenting on the weather.

Another round of snarling.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Use your words.”

There was the sound of shifting bones and then Derek’s gruff voice, “Let him go.”

“But I’ve grown so fond of the boy; look, I’ve even marked him.” She pulled his shirt to expose the bite on his shoulder.

Cue unhappy werewolf snarling. Stiles would be right there with them if he had even halfway impressive snarling capabilities. Instead, he used snark. “This is not a case of you break it you bought it.”

“Oh Child, I have not yet begun to break you.” She breathed lovingly into his ear.

Stiles suppressed a shudder.

They were at a standoff. The wolves couldn’t advance without her tearing Stiles apart, but she couldn’t leave without getting closer to the wolves. Stiles wasn’t sure how this was going to end. Wolves, a certain alpha especially, weren’t exactly known for patience. So when Stiles saw Scott sneak up behind the librarian, he blinked, surprised and confused.

Scott put a finger to his lips in the universal hush sign, and mouthed, “I told you so.”

Stiles rolled his eyes.

He watched as Scott pulled out a lighter and an aerosol can. He really hoped he wasn’t about to get burned, but he trusted Scott to not hurt him on purpose. Besides, a vampire on fire was not a clear thinking vampire. She’d probably let him go pretty quick.

When Scott activated his makeshift flamethrower, he aimed for the middle of her back. The clothes and skin caught fire instantly and she shrieked—right in his ear, dammit—and let go of him as she tried to put out the flames. 

Stiles was pulled aside by Isaac as Derek—once again in full alpha form—and Peter launched themselves at the vampire. The flames went out as soon as she hit the ground, but that didn’t save her from their claws.

She did not last long.

“Ow, ow, ow, _ow!_ ” Stiles groaned. He was sore and bruised and bitten! This was just not his day.

Suddenly, the pain was seeping away. He looked down and saw Isaac’s hand latched onto his arm, blackness snaking up as he leeched Stiles’ pain away.

Ok, so maybe Isaac was an alright guy. 

“Thanks.”

“Welcome.”

“Books!” Stiles lept up as soon as the thought entered his head. There was a lovely library at his fingertips now and he planned on taking a lot of it with him.

“Stiles!” 

He froze and turned to Derek—who was currently zipping up his pants and otherwise naked—and Scott, both of whom looked rather annoyed. “But… books…”

“You need to get to Deaton.” Scott told him. “You’ve been bitten by a freaking vampire!” 

“Five, actually.” Stiles corrected without thinking.

“What?” Derek snapped.

“Five vampires… at least, there are five different bites, so…” Stiles shrugged, trying to play it cool. If he didn’t freak out, maybe they wouldn’t—

Yeah, no, they were growling again. 

“Stiles…” Scott was kind of half growling, half whining, which honestly just turned kind of adorable especially added with his puppy eyes. 

Stiles took pity on him and sighed. “Okay, but I want a look at those books.”

“We’ll take care of it, Stiles.” Peter promised with a smile. Stiles didn’t like that in the least, but he was already being marched out of the lair so he couldn’t argue how bad that idea was.

There was tense silence as Derek—still only wearing pants, Stiles couldn’t help but notice—and Scott escorted Stiles to the surface. Stiles was hesitant to break it because he didn’t want to hear the I-told-you-so’s and lectures on going anywhere alone. In hindsight, yes, it had been foolish, but he’d been sure he’d be safe outside the city limits. He’d have to check on his ley lines theory, see if there was a map of where they existed. Deaton would probably know if such a map existed.

When they got to the Jeep, the Camaro was parked haphazardly next to it. Derek yanked open the trunk and pulled out a shirt, tugging it on as Scott helped Stiles into the passenger side of the Jeep.

“Thanks for the save.” He told both of them, because it needed to be said, before promptly passing out. He was exhausted, and there might be a slightly significant amount of blood loss, there was no real way to be sure beyond the dizziness.

When he woke up, he was at the clinic. 

“Back from the dead, I see.”

“You’re hilarious.” Stiles muttered to the vet who was currently examining him.

“I try.” Deaton was cleaning the bites along his collarbone. “How are you feeling?”

“Little lightheaded.”

Deaton nodded. “To be expected considering. You’ve lost a little over a pint of blood, judging by the bite marks, and nosferatu venom makes their prey a little more docile.”

“Joy.” Stiles sighed. “Any adverse or long-term side effects?”

“Just suspicious looking wounds, but those should heal in a day or two.”

Stiles grunted his thanks before looking around. “Where’re the others?”

“Scott is in the waiting area; Derek left, but I’m fairly certain he hasn’t gone far.” Deaton finished cleaning and dressing the bites in silence after that.

When he finished, Stiles pulled his t-shirt back on and hopped off the exam table. “Thanks, Doc.”

“You’re quite welcome, Stiles, but try not to make a habit of it.” Deaton smiled politely, and opened the door to the waiting room for him.

He was still really tired and let Scott help him into the Jeep again rather than asking Deaton about ley lines. He’d ask later once he’d done more of his own research. He managed to stay awake through the car ride and get his own ass up the stairs to his bed, saying goodbye to Scott on the porch.

He flopped down on his bed, took a deep breath, and then rolled over to look at Derek as he climbed into his window.

“Here for the I told you so speech?” Stiles asked.

Derek shook his head. “Maybe later.”

“Then wassup?”

“Just…” he was quiet for several minutes. Stiles let him think and sort out what he wanted to say, too tired to add his own commentary. “You still smell like them…”

“Sorry.” Stiles muttered frowning. He could sort of smell the vamps on himself, but it must be really bad for the wolves. “I was gonna take a shower tomorrow when the world stops swaying so much.”

Derek huffed out what might have been a laugh, but probably wasn’t since it was Derek. “Put one foot on the ground.”

Stiles raised a questioning eyebrow, but did as instructed. Immediately, the dizziness disappeared. “Oh my god, you’re a genius! How did—“

“Something my aunt told me once.” Derek shrugged. “When she’d get drunk, she’d put a foot on the ground to keep the bed from spinning off into space.”

Stiles chuckled a bit and relaxed a little more, the aches still present, but without the dizziness, he figured he’d be able to sleep now. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He said a bit stiffly, probably not used to it. “Go to sleep, Stiles.”

“’Night, Derek.” Stiles drifted off into a surprisingly restful sleep.


	4. Shadows and Lies and Paintball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hale Pack is in danger, and if Stiles and the others can't save the day, all of Beacon Hills will suffer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt: Ghost; Witching Hour_
> 
> _I'm so sorry I'm late, this story would not let me end it! I tried! I'm sorry if it sucks._

Stiles poured over the map he’d found online that marked out ley lines in northern California. If the map was to be believed, Beacon Hills landed smack in the middle of the meeting of three very large ley lines. Just for curiosity’s sake, he’d found the vampire’s nest on the map too, and noted that the area was, in fact, on a ley line. Only one, but it was one of the larger ones.

His ley line theory held water, it seemed. 

Once he’d determined that, he started researching the history and lore of ley lines in more depth. He wanted to know what to expect in the future so no one got blind sided again. As it turned out, the most common beings attracted to powerful ley lines were witches. Stiles wasn’t aware of any witches in town or near town, and it struck him as a little odd since Beacon Hills sat on top of the most powerful crossroads of ley lines in all of California. 

He started a new search then to see if he could suss out why there were no witches in the area, and what to expect should any show up. What he found ranged from kind of hilarious to the truly terrifying. He spent hours combing through the sites about covens and the history of witchcraft trying to determine which end of the scale was more likely. When he started running out of credible sites, Stiles dug through his own personal library of supernatural texts to see if he could get anything else.

After nearly eight straight hours of this, he’d come to the conclusion that the most likely reason there wasn’t any witch activity was because covens tended to stay away from territories claimed by other supernatural beings (i.e. werewolves), but that there were occasions when particularly strong covens would try to wrest valuable territory from packs and the like if they deemed the benefits outweighed the potential cost.

Stiles delved into those stories. He had a feeling that Beacon Hills rated fairly high on the Witch’s Prime Real Estate list.

“You always were inquisitive.” 

Stiles froze. 

He had to be hallucinating. Or dreaming. 

There was no other reason he should hear that voice.

Though, granted, he’d never heard that particular tone come out of her mouth before.

Turning around slowly, hardly daring to breathe, Stiles looked behind him. There, standing in front of his bed was his mother. 

“Mom?” He whispered, throat tight.

She was a little harsher looking than he remembered, as if the laugh lines were gone and replaced by years of irritation and disappointment. There was no smile in her eyes and she stood in a slightly aggressive or highly annoyed stance. He couldn’t remember his mom ever looking like this, but here she was. 

“You stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. You’re going to get someone else hurt, _Stiles._ ” She practically hissed his nickname.

Whatever this thing was, it was not his mother. He could blame himself for her death, and he did, but she would never. Whatever this was, it was a poor, malicious imitation, and he refused to allow it to affect him.

“You’re not her.” He glared daggers at the image.

She laughed without joy, “Death changes people, Son. If I’m different, it’s because of _you._ ”

He grabbed the nearest thing he could get his hands on—his history textbook—and flung it at her. The book sailed through her as she smirked, unaffected. The book made a very loud thud against the far wall.

Stiles’ phone beeped that he had a text. He ignored it, not taking his eyes off the image in front of him.

“You going to get that?” She taunted. 

“It can wait.”

“Might be important.”

“Not high on my list of priorities at the moment.”

His phone beeped again.

“It’s impolite to ignore people. I did teach you manners, didn’t I?” 

“You’re not her.” He said again.

A knock from downstairs begged for his attention, but he refused to be distracted.

“Stiles!” His dad called from downstairs. “Allison’s here to see you.”

That was almost enough to grab his full attention, but he kept his eyes trained on the image as he called back, “Send her up.”

The sound of hurried steps proceeded Allison as she made her way to his room. She flung his door open, but he couldn’t afford to look at her, would not trust his back to the thing in front of him.

“Stiles.” She sounded more than a bit wrecked, like she was holding back tears.

“Allison.” He waved her closer, trying to convey his concern through tone rather than looking at her.

“Stiles, I need your help.” She knelt down next to him. He saw her out of the corner of his eye as she looked between him and where he was staring.

“Oh, wee lamb.” His not-mother commented. “She’s a pretty one, Stiles. You could be all over that; look at the way she’s _begging_ you to save her. Be her knight in shining armor.”

Obviously, Allison couldn’t hear her since she didn’t react to the lilting, teasing words. “Allison. Do me a solid and tell me what you see.” He pointed to his not-mother.

She looked, he saw her turn her head. “Your bed, a dent in your wall.”

His not-mother smirked again. 

“Thank you.” He tore his eyes away from the not quite familiar image and faced Allison. “What do you need?”

“I…” She bit a trembling lip. Finally, after a moment, she started again in a fragile whisper. “Are ghosts real?”

“Possibly.” Stiles admitted. “But if what you saw is anything like what I just saw, then I don’t think it was actually a ghost.”

“What?” Allison looked at him, then back to where he’d been staring. “You… saw someone? There was someone there?”

“My mom. Sort of.” He nodded, glancing back at where she’d been, but the thing was gone now. “But she was… off.”

“Oh, Stiles…” Allison looked like she wanted to reach out and comfort him.

“I’m fine.” He told her, firmly telling himself the same thing. “But whatever that was is going to _die_ the next time I see it.” He pulled his mind away from his own vision and focused on Allison. “What happened?”

Allison recounted her run-in with her own mother and Kate. The two had berated her for her relationship with Scott, called her traitor, told her she was weak. They told her it was her fault that they had died, that if she had been better, stronger, she would have killed the wolves herself when she found out what they were and they wouldn’t have died. 

Once they left, she’d broken down and cried and cried until her dad had found her. She explained to Stiles that her dad had talked her down from the crushing despair with words of comfort and love. He hadn’t even known what had happened, he just sat with her until she felt better. Once she did, she came to Stiles because she trusted him, and he was the expert, he could tell her what had happened.

The problem was, as confident as Stiles was that what had been in his room was not his mother, he couldn’t say the same for what Allison had seen. As far as he knew, those could be things that those women would actually believe. He didn’t think very highly of them, to say the least, but he suspected that it was related, at the very least, to what had gone down in his room.

“Alright.” He swung around to his computer once again. “If it is ghosts, or a type of angry spirit, there are some basics. Salt should disperse it for a time, and a ring around yourself will keep a spirit from harming you physically.” 

Allison nodded, understanding. “Ok. How do we kill it?”

Stiles winced, sucking air between his teeth. “There’s the thing. If it is who it looks like, then the answer is to salt and burn the remains.”

“You mean dig up the graves of my mother and aunt and desecrate their corpses?”

“My mom, too remember. I don’t like the idea any more than you do, but I’m fairly certain that’s not the case here.” Stiles told her quickly. “It might just be something taking the shape of people we know, loved one’s we’ve lost to… I dunno. Rile us up, or make us do something stupid.”

“Like attacking the wolves.” Allison sounded more like she was reassuring herself that that was a Bad Idea.

“Did they tell you to do that?” Stiles asked.

She shook her head. “Not expressly, but it had crossed my mind.” She at least had the decency to look ashamed.

“Right. Don’t do that. Whatever this is, it’s up to something.” Stiles shook his head, trying to think. “Don’t listen to anything it says.”

“Let me know when you figure out what’s doing it?” She asked.

“Yep.” Stiles promised.

“Thank you, Stiles.”

He stood, pulling her to her feet, and gave her a hug. “You’re strong, Allison. Don’t let them get to you.”

She hugged him back before pulling away and leaving.

With a sigh, Stiles picked up his phone and read the missed texts.

_FROM: Bro Thief  
11:31am_

_Something weird’s happening. Keep an eye open._

The next one read:

_FROM: McCujo  
11:32am_

_isaac just freaked out @ work; u kno wats up?_

So Isaac was seeing them too, but not Scott. Not yet, anyway.

Sighing, Stiles replied to both of them.

_TO: Bro Thief; McCujo  
12:03pm_

_Might have Situation. Looking into it._

Stiles went into the kitchen and snuck the salt out of the pantry. He lined his room in it, grumbling about how much of a pain it was going to be to get it out of the carpet, and then went back to the computer and started researching shades and spirits and ghosts and anything else he could think of that might be the cause. There was a lot of information, some he already knew, but the biggest hint he got was that apparently witches could manipulate or create malicious shades to pester and distract their enemies as some kind of psychological warfare.

Witches. Damn it.

And it was only going to get worse.

Shutting his laptop, Stiles grabbed his phone, the ley line map, and his keys before gearing up with a few essentials and running out the door. When he jumped in the Jeep, he sent a couple texts.

_TO: Katniss  
5:48pm_

_Witches, get your game face on. I’ll come up with a plan and get back to you._

 

_TO: sourwolf  
5:51pm_

_I know what’s happening._

Not twenty seconds later, he phone rang with Derek’s ringtone—a klaxon blaring, because if Derek is calling him, shit has hit the fan—and he picks it up as he pulls the Jeep onto the street.

“You guys are under attack.” Stiles answers with, launching straight into the explanation portion of the phone call.

“By who?”

“Not who, what. There’s a coven after your territory, a strong one judging by what’s been happening. Has Isaac talked to you about what happened at Deaton’s?”

A low growl, more frustrated than angry, sounded before Derek spoke. “He said he saw his mother and brother.”

“I bet they had nothing but pleasant things to say.” Stiles muttered. “Ok, did he catch what they smelled like?”

“They didn’t.” He replied. “He said they had no scent.”

“Awesome. Not real ghosts then, probably illusions. They’re going to get worse though; where is he now?”

“Here.”

Not that Stiles knew where here was; Derek could mean the warehouse or the Hale House, but it meant that they were together, which was good. “What about Lydia, Jackson, and Peter?”

“Also here. Tell me what’s going on Stiles.”

“Like I said, there’s a coven after this territory. Beacon Hills sits on top of the largest crossroads of ley lines in all of California and the witches want access to that power, but they can’t—“

“Because this is Pack territory.”

“Exactly.” Stiles nodded emphatically even though Derek couldn’t see it. “They’re using images of our dead relatives to push our buttons, makes us distracted and vulnerable, and it’s only going to get worse as the night goes on.”

“Our?”

So he had caught that. Okay. “Yeah. I got a visit from Allison today saying she just had an encounter with her mom and aunt. Also… My mom stopped by.”

Derek was quiet for a little while. 

“So its not just Pack that’s targeted?” That was Isaac.

Stiles sighed. “No. From what I gathered, they probably went after Allison in hopes of getting her to attack you guys. She won’t, but that was the goal.”

“What about you, Stiles?” Peter asked. Clearly, he was on speakerphone or something.

“I’m on my way to get a few supplies before I head over to the preserve; I need you all to meet me there before sundown; in the mean time—“

“What did your mother say?” Peter interrupted him.

Stiles ignored him. “ _In the mean time_ , stick together and keep each other… sane.”

“I doubt putting them all in one place will accomplish that.” 

Stiles swerved the Jeep a little and shouted in alarm as his not-mother’s apparition appeared in the passenger seat.

“Stiles!” Derek shouted over the phone.

“Gah, sorry. Bit of a pest problem at the moment.”

“Rude, Stiles.” She said. 

“Are you alright?” That was Isaac.

“Fine.” Stiles gritted out, ignoring the unpleasant smirk the shade was giving him. “Seriously though, the attacks are only going to get worse as the sun goes down. Be careful.”

“What about Scott?” 

“That’s right, Scott has a new best friend, doesn’t he.” She sneered. “Little pup to share all these werewolf powers with, someone who can keep up with him, who can protect him. He doesn’t need you anymore.”

“Shut up.” Stiles hissed.

“Stiles?”

“Not you, Isaac. As for Scott… if you think he’ll come, get him there, but I don’t know how much of a sway these things will have on him.” Stiles admitted. “He hasn’t lost anyone.”

“Better safe than sorry.” That was Lydia. It was good to hear her sound so collected and on top of things, not that he expected any less.

“How is that crush coming?” The apparition teased. “Such a brilliant and observant girl, surely should have noticed you by now. Makes you wonder if there’s really anything for her to see.”

Stiles tried to block out the taunting.

“Derek?”

“What?”

Stiles hesitated. The alpha had lost more people than any of them; he wanted to tell him to be careful, but he wasn’t sure how in a way Derek would listen. “Salt. Make a salt ring if you can, it might keep them at bay long enough for me to get there.”

“What is salt supposed to do?” Jackson scoffed.

Stiles heard Lydia explain the idea to Jackson as Derek spoke. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“He has so little faith in you.” His not-mother commented. “He’ll have to put his own ass on the line to save your worthless one. Then what? He dies and his lost little puppies have no one to look after them, and it’ll be entirely your fault. Again.”

Stiles disconnected and wished his car had a radio he could crank to drown out the words of the shade. But he couldn’t, so he just bit the inside of his cheek and forced himself to ignore her. Eyes front, mouth shut.

“Can’t ignore me forever, sonny.”

Eyes front, mouth shut.

He was on a mission. He had to get supplies to protect the others. Salt wasn’t going to cut it once the sun set. The shades would gain more power from the night, and then salt would have as much affect on them as it did on humans. 

His first stop was Deaton and the clinic. He rushed in just as Deaton was preparing to close, the shade of his mother following him.

“Doc.” Stiles flailed to a stop in front of the vet/guru. “In a bit of a pinch.”

“I can see that.” The man didn’t look at Stiles; instead he looked directly at the shade. 

“You can see her?”

Deaton nodded. “I see the shade, but not its shape. Come in. I have just what you need.”

“Awesome.” Stiles followed Deaton into the clinic, but the shade stopped at the doorway. “Why can’t she follow?”

“This place is warded.” He explained simply.

“Neat. Wish I could use wards.”

“They’re not unlike the mountain ash circle, Stiles. You could easily master them if you chose learn how.”

“Later.” Stiles nodded off-handed. “On a bit of a clock.”

“What’s happened?”

“There’s a coven after Beacon Hills.” Stiles told him. “So far Isaac, Allison, and myself have all seen shades.”

“I wasn’t aware Allison was Pack.” Deaton raised an eyebrow.

Stiles shook his head. “It’s not just Pack being targeted. I think the coven’s trying to get her to attack the Pack like she’s done in the past.”

“Makes sense.” Deaton nodded. “She has done it before, and is… an emotional young woman.”

“If that’s a polite way of saying easily manipulated, I don’t need the sugar coating.” Stiles hadn’t really forgiven Allison for trying to kill the Pack, even though he knew Gerard was manipulating her. Maybe one day, but not today.

Deaton nodded again. “Are you familiar with how witches take territory?”

“From what I’ve read, they start with something like this. Emotional and psychological warfare to unbalance their targets; make them sloppy or outright useless against the physical assault which should start once the sun goes down. Then it’s a cleansing of the new area done at the witching hour. If anyone’s still standing by midnight, they get cleansed right along with the remaining Pack energy in the territory.”

“You’ve done your research.” Deaton commented.

“Kinda my shtick.”

Deaton regarded him seriously. “Do you know how to stop it?”

“Vague idea. Disrupt the ritual, or kill the witches before it even starts.”

“There’s a high chance that disrupting the ritual will trigger a backfire and kill the coven, and anyone else caught in the blast.” Deaton told him. “Strong magical workings like the cleansing ritual require a great deal of power and can be quite delicate.”

“I know.” Stiles had read a lot about the cleansing ritual. “Do you have anything we can use against the shades?”

“Until they manifest in corporeal forms, salt and iron will disperse them temporarily.” Deaton reminded him. “Once the sun goes down, that will change. They’ll be able to interact physically at sundown, salt will have no effect, and hitting them with iron will only slow them down the way hitting anything with iron would.”

“So, the wolves should be fine with claws and teeth, right?”

“It’ll damage them, yes, but the shades are illusionists by nature. They’ll use trickery and magic to make attacking them reckless.”

“Unless…?”

“Unless you can see through their spells.” Deaton handed Stiles a small jar. “A little over both eyelids, _believe_ it’ll work, and you will be able to see right through their illusions.”

Stiles took the jar. “How long will it last?”

“Sunrise.” Deaton told him.

Stiles nodded, “Thanks.”

Deaton gestured for him to wait a moment, so Stiles waited as the vet opened the door to his office and went in. When he came back, he had a small bottle in his hand. He set in on the exam table in front of Stiles.

“If it comes down to it, this should give you a chance at surviving the ritual backfiring.”

“Should and chance are… better than nothing.” Stiles sighed as he picked up the bottle. “What is it?”

“Extract of Dragon’s Blood.”

“Like real dragons or the plant?”

“The plant.”

“That’s good. Not sure I’d survive the nerd-gasm if dragons were real.” Deaton made no comment, just gave him that judging eyebrow. Stiles ignored him. “So, down the hatch?”

“If you have to, but only if you have to Stiles. Beyond the fact that it is frightfully hard to come by, that poultice will not be gentle on your health.” Deaton warned.

“Got it.” Stiles opened the little jar of oil and applied it to his eyelids as Deaton instructed, willing it to work, before slipping the Dragon’s Blood into a secure pocket of his bag.

Stiles saluted the vet on his way out of the clinic and ran for his Jeep. He saw the black shape of the shade following him, a bland-looking shadow that hovered and shifted in agitation. It no longer looked like his mother.

Still sounded like her.

“Burying your head in the sand? Too scared to face me like a man?”

“You’re one to talk.” Stiles snapped.

“Cheeky.” It purred. “You have an ostrich complex. How long do you think you can ignore your problems? Until they just go away? Ha. Grow up, Stiles. Just admit you’re too cowardly to take care of your own problems, so you drag people down and make them deal with what you can’t. What you’re not man enough to face.”

“Not sure what you think I’m doing, but I’m pretty sure driving in to save the Pack is facing the problem.”

“The Pack? Weren’t you a part of that Pack? Are you still Pack, or have they tossed you aside?” The shade practically vibrated with glee as if it sensed Stiles’ reaction to its words. “You don’t know, do you? And you won’t ask either. Too scared of what the answer might be? Afraid it’ll be _no_ , afraid they’ll _laugh_ at you, that _Derek_ will laugh at you, the _pathetic human_ who thinks he can run with _wolves_ , as if he belongs, as if he’s _wanted._ ”

Throat tight with emotion, Stiles finally gave in and reached down to tug the iron letter opener out of his make-shift boot sheath, forcing him to take his eyes off the road briefly, and stubbed it violently into where the shade’s heart would be if it had one. The letter opener went through the shade, dispersing it, and punctured the seat. 

Stiles left it there, hoping it might keep the damn thing from reappearing, and kept driving. His next stop was the Argent’s house to pick up Allison and maybe borrow one or two things, if her dad would let him. Probably not, but it was worth a shot.

_TO: Katniss  
6:39pm_

_Might need to borrow some supplies…_

Stiles pulled up into the driveway and parked. He yanked the letter opener out of the upholstery and slid it back into its sheath before getting out of the Jeep. Allison met him at the door.

“What do you need?” She did not look dressed to do anything other than sleep.

“You… don’t look like you have your game face on.”

She shifted uncomfortably. “I can’t Stiles…” She took a shaky breath. “I don’t… trust myself; they keep whispering…”

Stiles nodded. It hadn’t been too long since Gerard and Stiles understood her unwillingness to trust herself. He even admired her a little for being able to admit it and do the safe thing. “Okay. In that case, I need—“

“To protect her. Look at her, she’s a wreck Stiles.” The shade whispered sweetly. “She could use a friend, she’s alone, like you. You could stay with her, comfort her, be there for her, the way no one is there for you.”

“Stiles?” Allison looked concerned and a little frightened.

“I need a paintball gun and ammo.”

She stood a bit straighter. “Long rang or short?”

“Both if you have them.”

She nodded and led Stiles to the garage, where Stiles got a very inspiring look at a very impressive gun collection, but she moved to a different section of the garage without acknowledging them. 

“We have specialty ammunition for these; do you need anything besides paint?”

“What do you have?”

She showed him, explaining each as she pulled them out of boxes. He took a few cartridges of saltwater pellets, and a dozen cartridges of hard rubber pellets, in addition to the paintballs. Non-lethal, but effective.

He slung the rifle, loaded with rubber pellets, over his shoulder and the pistol-like gun, loaded with saltwater pellets, in a holster at his hip. A few extra cartridges went in the pockets of his cargo pants, the rest went in his bag.

“You look ready for war.” Allison commented and Stiles was not going to over-analyze the small pride he heard in her voice.

“Rambo ain’t got nothing on me.” Stiles deadpanned. 

She looked tense suddenly. Stiles glanced around casually until he saw them. Two shades, one on either side of him. They must be talking to Allison because he couldn’t hear them. Leaning down to seemingly retie his laces, Stiles pulled the iron letter opener out of its sheath again.

“Wanna see a trick?” Stiles asked casually as he stood, like he had no idea she was being mentally assaulted. Before she could answer though, he drew the pistol, fired a shot into the head of one shade, and swung out with the letter opener to slice the other. Both vanished.

Allison looked at him, unshed tears in her eyes, and gave him a tiny smile. “Thank you.”

“They’re vicious bastards. Don’t be an easy target; defend yourself.” Stiles advised her, slipping the gun and letter opener into their respective homes. It was, perhaps, a little harsh, but Allison was strong when she chose to be and he needed her to not let these shades get to her. “It’ll get worse when the sun goes down.”

“What should I do?” She sounded very small and scared and he didn’t like, knew she didn’t like it either.

“I have no idea if they’ll attack you when the sun goes down.” Stiles told her honestly. “As far as I’m aware, they were trying to get you to attack us; if you refuse to do that? They might just focus their efforts on the wolves.”

“If they don’t?”

“If anyone tries to kill you, you try to kill them right back.” Stiles told her with a smirk.

Whether she understood the reference or not, the words made her straighten her shoulders and look just that much more confident. Allison pulled out a paintball gun of her own and a few cartridges. “That sounds reasonable. What’s your plan?”

Stiles smirked again. “I aim to misbehave.”

Allison rolled her eyes, still smiling, catching on that he was quoting something. “Be careful, Stilinski.”

“Don’t worry about me.” Stiles said, eyeing the shade that was approaching Allison from behind. He shot it quickly. “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts.”

She laughed, hugged him, and showed him to the door.

He sent a text as he climbed into the Jeep.

_TO: sourwolf; Bro Thief  
6:55pm_

_I’m on my way._

He kept the pistol close, the saltwater pellets would still be effective for another hour and a half at least and he wanted no stowaways on his mad dash to the Hale House.

_FROM: Bro Thief  
6:56pm_

_Hurry_

“Crap.”

Stiles peeled out of the driveway, burning rubber.

“You’re really determined to save the day, aren’t you?” The shade was in his backseat, behind him where he couldn’t reach it without taking his eyes off the road, which he couldn’t do until he was out of the residential neighborhood. “You’re so _desperate_ to prove yourself, but you’re only going to make it worse. You’re only going to get them _hurt_ , because you are _weak!_ You are a _human_ playing in a dark and vicious game that has you so far out of your depth that you can barely see daylight. When they get hurt saving your _worthless_ hide, it’ll be their blood on your hands. You really think you can live with that guilt? You think you can live with yourself _knowing_ you’re responsible for _another_ death? How can you live with yourself knowing you were responsible for _mine?_ ”

Stiles slammed on the breaks, pulled the pistol, and fired into the things chest. He took a minute to get his breathing back to normal, force down the panic attack that wanted to gain purchase, and then sped the rest of the way to the preserve.

When he pulled up to the Hale House, he heard snarling. Stiles hurried to make sure he had everything situated as he jumped out of the Jeep, drawing the pistol as he closed the door. He ran up to the front door, flung it open, sighted the _eight_ shades and shot them all in rapid secession.

“What did I tell you about salt?” He demanded.

“Stiles!” Isaac actually hugged him. It was a little weird, not terrible, though, so he allowed it and briefly returned the hug with one arm, patting him a little awkwardly on the shoulder.

Isaac stepped back, letting him go, and Stiles turned to survey the room. Lydia had Jackson practically wrapped around her lap as they sat on the ragged couch; Scott inched closer to Isaac and Stiles, looking worried and agitated; Peter stood, giving off a particularly murderous vibe, near the stairs; and Derek was busy trying to reclaim his humanity before looking to Stiles.

“We ran out.” Lydia explained when no one else stepped up.

“Are you wearing war paint?” Scott asked, completely off-topic.

“Good thing I brought more.” Stiles dug the economy size salt cylinder out of his bag and tossed it to Lydia. “And it’s not war paint. It allows me to see through their illusions.”

“How resourceful, Stiles.” Peter drawled. There was more than a little of the old Peter, the crazy-murderer-psychopath-Peter, in his voice than Stiles was at all comfortable with.

“I have more, but not enough for everyone.” Stiles had quietly lamented at the size of the jar when Deaton had given it to him.

“Start with them.” Derek gestured to Jackson and Isaac, voice rough. 

Stiles nodded, understanding. Derek had the most control of the wolves; the others were far more likely to accidentally injure a friendly when the fighting started. He moved over to Jackson, gently explaining to the scared wolf what he was doing as he did it. Once he had the ointment on his eyes, Stiles moved on to Isaac, then to Peter. He ran out of ointment after finishing with Peter.

Derek nodded, either approving of his choices or thanking him, Stiles wasn’t sure. “It’ll last through dawn.”

Four snarls erupted in the room then; the three he’d anointed and Derek. Their eyes were near him, so Stiles glanced around. He saw it behind him, circle with him as he tried to track it, always keeping Stiles between itself and the wolves. It even crouched down with him as he went for his boot sheath. It clearly wasn’t expecting Stiles to spin around on his heels and slash at it with his letter opener, because it wasn’t able to dodge in time.

“Is that what they look like?” Isaac asked.

“Shades are literally creatures of shadows.” Stiles explained. “Witches like to use them because they create mayhem and unbalance the mental state of whoever they’re targeting.”

“Why do you smell like Allison?” Scott whined a little. And seriously, the dude was not focused on the severity of this situation at all.

Stiles shot him a look. “Try to focus Scott. We’re kinda under attack.”

“He is obviously more interested in Allison than you.” That damn shade was back. “Have you thought about what I said?”

Isaac launched himself at it, snarling, but he went right through the shade not affecting it in the least.

“Not very bright is he?” The shade chuckled. “And yet, _he’s_ Pack, _he_ has Scott. Not you. Because you’re worthless.”

“Nag, nag, nag.” Stiles shot her squarely in the chest. When she dissipated, Stiles shook his head. He hated how much her words rang in his ears, but he guessed that was the point. He shook it off, straightened up and said, “Listen up; we’ve got about forty-five minutes before shit gets really interesting. In the meantime, we stick together. These things are made from shadows; they thrive in them, so I need Lydia and Derek to move your cars. We’re going to position them to face the house and we’re going to turn on the lights, reduce the places for them to hide, and hopefully weaken them a bit.”

Lydia was already extracting herself from Jackson to do as she was told, while Stiles looked at Derek imploringly. It was always a little risky to give the alpha any kind of order, but Stiles hoped he’d get Derek’s cooperation on this one. 

When Derek finally nodded and followed Lydia out, Stiles heaved a relieved sigh. “Okay. Isaac, take this: iron works like salt to get rid of them for a bit, in case any show while we’re setting up.” Stiles handed him the letter opener before running out the door to move his Jeep.

When he got out there, Lydia and Derek were already in the process of moving their cars, so Stiles hurried over to his Jeep. When the three cars were lined up so that there was good overall coverage of light, the three turned on their brights and then got out.

Satisfied, Stiles gestured for Derek to lead the way back into the house. He did understand at least a little of Pack dynamics, after all. 

The following minutes until sundown were tense. Stiles nearly exhausted his supply of saltwater pellets, but Isaac wasn’t the only one sporting iron anymore. All three cars had tire irons, so Isaac took one, giving Lydia the letter opener, and Derek and Peter took the others. Between the five of them, they kept the shades away. Jackson slowly came back to himself with Lydia’s help, and was functional again just before sunset. As the sun sank down, Stiles changed out the saltwater cartridge for a paintball cartridge.

“Stay alert.” Derek growled as the sun sank ever lower. “Make sure you know your target before you attack.”

Stiles nodded, glad that Derek was taking charge. They were his betas—for the most part—and they needed their alpha, especially since this was an attack against the Pack, not just random shenanigans.

“Stiles,” Derek looked at him. When Stiles gave Derek his attention, the alpha continued. “You have range; get somewhere out of the way.”

It made sense, so Stiles didn’t argue, for once. “Aye, aye Captain.” 

Ideally he’d like somewhere with height, but he was limited a little by the setting. The first floor was fairly open now that several dilapidated walls had finally been fully removed—whether by a plan to renovate or simply an outburst of anger, Stiles didn’t know—so line of sight wasn’t a big issue from the first floor, but there was little in the way of height.

He took the stairs up about halfway, Lydia following him. He gave her the rifle and they hunkered down, out of the way of the wolves, but with a good view of the area.

“How have you been doing?” Stiles asked quietly.

“Frustrated.” Lydia answered. “I haven’t seen any shades, just what they’re doing to everyone. I wish you’d gotten here sooner.”

“Had to get supplies.” Stiles said in lieu of an apology.

While they couldn’t actually see the sky from within the house, everyone knew when the sun finally sank below the horizon. The air practically tingled with anticipation and grew heavy as the last rays faded from view.

The shades descended with a hollow screech.

Stiles wasted no time painting targets. He had no idea whether or not the shades would be visible without the aid of the ointment, so he used the paintballs to literally paint the shades. Judging by Lydia’s soft “aha!”, he guessed that she had been unable to see them until he hit one with bright yellow splatter.

They worked in tandem. He’d paint a target, she shoot it with hard rubber. Exactly how much damage they were doing wasn’t really apparent, but they were clearly distracting the shades, because the shades stumbled or paused long enough after a hit that a wolf could rip into it. Lydia wasn’t the only one using his painting to give them targets, either. Scott, who also couldn’t see the shades, looked for the bright yellow to know where to attack. 

The one having the most trouble was Derek. He could see shades, but he had no protection against their illusions. Once Stiles realized that Derek was struggling, he focused his painting on the shades surrounding the alpha to encourage Lydia to pelt them with hard rubber, hopefully throwing them off and disrupting whatever illusion they were working.

It seemed to work well. There were close to fifteen shades currently in the house and no new ones had appeared in a while. They were strong though, despite the light pouring into the house, and they were fast too. Stiles saw more than a few gashes on the wolves. They were damaging the shades though. Claws and teeth were vicious and had torn more than a couple shades apart completely.

After a full hour, the shades were dead.

Stiles did not relax. Couldn’t. There were three more hours until midnight and he had no idea how long a respite they would get before the next attack came at them.

“Head count!” Derek shouted.

No one was without injury except Lydia and Stiles, but they were all healing. 

“Was that it?” Scott asked, ever hopeful.

“No.” Stiles answered. “That was just round one.”

“What makes you so sure?” Jackson asked.

“Do you see any witches, Jackson? I don’t see any witches. They have to come here to do the ritual.”

Both Peter and Derek growled at that.

Stiles busied himself making sure that both the rifle and the pistol had full cartridges of CO2 and ammo. He was glad he’d gotten so many.

“What else is coming?” Lydia asked.

“More shades probably.” Stiles shrugged. “It’ll take a little time for them to summon up another batch, but I don’t know how long. Once they get tired of toying with us, they’ll come themselves and start slinging spells. Their goal is to take this territory and kill anyone who gets in their way.”

“You never did answer my question.” Peter said.

“I did that on purpose.” Stiles told him. 

“Is now really the time?” Lydia snapped.

“Why not? We aren’t currently occupied…” Peter gestured to the enemy-free house. “We should know what he was told, what was whispered into his ear. He might be a danger to us, like Allison.”

“What does Allison have to do with this?” Scott huffed.

“Stiles told us that the shades paid Allison a visit, that they wanted her to turn on us, attack us. I want to know what they told him, so we can know whether or not he’s a threat.” Peter explained calmly.

“It’s not important.” Stiles said.

All the wolves froze and looked at him. 

“That was a lie.” Peter informed him helpfully.

Stiles glared at the undead creeper and then looked beseechingly to the others, but they all clearly wanted to know what had been said, because no one was jumping up to help him.

Stiles sighed, frustrated. “Allow me to clarify then. She wasn’t trying to turn me against you, and I’m not going to attack you. Better?”

Isaac and Jackson looked satisfied, Derek looked less like he wanted to break something, Peter was obviously still curious, but Scott whimpered. When Stiles turned to him, it was obvious no one had informed Scott of why Stiles was in this fight.

“Your mom?” Scott looked like he was ready to wrap Stiles up in a hug and never let go.

“Just a shade.” Stiles shook his head violently. “Not my mom. Just like it wasn’t Allison’s family or Isaac’s or Jackson’s or Derek’s. Nothing they said should be taken to heart; their goal was to hurt us, make us emotional and stupid, so that when they attacked, we’d be too helpless to fight back. They failed. Let’s move on.”

When Peter looked like he was ready to ask another damn question, Derek shut him up with a growl. Stiles was grateful. 

“What happens if the witches show up?” Jackson asked, perturbed, apparently, that nothing was currently being torn to shreds.

“We kill them.” Derek and Stiles stated. There was a weird moment where everyone looked a little shocked.

“Stiles…” Scott started.

“Let me explain something to you.” Stiles interrupted him. “They mean to kill us. As in _dead_. If we don’t stop them by midnight, we are all dead. They will wipe this place clean of any Pack residue, _including us_ , with their ritual, and then the large coven of evil witches will have an all access pass to the largest supernatural power source on the west coast, possibly the entire country, and there will be _no one_ who can stop them from doing whatever they want.”

Slow applause rang sharply through the house.

“Cookie for you.” The young woman who had snuck up on them glided forward with a swagger that rivaled most runway models. She circled Stiles like he was something she’d like to buy. “My sisters were not joking about your potential, Stiles.”

With the ointment on, Stiles saw that she wasn’t all there. She was an illusion, but not a shade, and he’d bet dollars to curly fries that she was one of the witches. A quick look at the wolves showed Stiles that the others who could tell that the woman was just an illusion were holding Derek and Scott in place. Attacking her would do absolutely nothing. Didn’t stop them all from growling, though.

“Assessing the effectiveness of your shades, or are you just here to gloat?” Stiles asked.

“Can’t it be both?” She smiled, bright white teeth behind deep purple painted lips. The witch should look absolutely ridiculous with her black pixie cut hair that held blue, purple, and green highlights, heavy eyeliner, and enough piercings to set off every metal detector in a five-mile radius, but somehow she still exuded “Dangerous.”

“I doubt it’s either.” Stiles decided quickly. He turned just enough to project his voice to the others, but didn’t lose eye contact with the witch. “She’s a distraction. Eyes on the room!”

“Oh yes. I like you a lot, Stiles.” She smirked and winked before disappearing. 

There was a flurry of motion as another round of shades swooped in. This time, Stiles and Lydia were both in the middle of it. He sighted carefully and tried to edge toward the wall, making sure that Lydia kept up with him. It was not easy, and Stiles got slashed across his right side from a shade that got too close, but eventually the two humans made it out of the middle of the melee and to the stairs. Once there, they resumed their pattern from the last round.

Because they weren’t taken off guard, the fight went a lot better than it could have. Again, all the wolves were hurt, but they were already healing by the time the last shade fell a little over an hour and a half later. There were all exhausted, however.

Stiles checked his wound. It was shallow and had already stopped bleeding, but the shirt was ruined. He brushed off Lydia when she tried to look at it, saying he was fine.

“It truly would have been a waste if you had killed yourself like my sisters had planned.” The illusion was back.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw every head whip around to watch him. The illusion crouched down next to him on the stairs, though, so he focused his attention on her, rather than nosy werewolves.

“Stay alert.” Derek snapped, the first one to realize he shouldn’t be focused entirely on Stiles in case this was just another distraction.

“You should join us instead.” The witch offered. 

“You have a name?” Stiles asked.

She smirked, like she’d accomplished something. “They call me Mab.”

“Go fuck yourself, Mab.” Stiles stated calmly.

She faux pouted at him and he wished she were actually present so he could smack her. “Such language. You kiss you mother with that mouth?”

Stiles glared at her, “Leave before I make you.”

She cackled, and the sound remained a few seconds after her image.

Once the sound of sadistic laughter had faded, silence settled uncomfortably over the house. Stiles hated silence, especially uncomfortable silence.

“The next wave will be here soon. Be ready.” Stiles checked the cartridges of both the pistol and the rifle for Lydia. It was something to do, something to focus on other than the fact that everyone was staring at him.

“How much longer… do we… have to… keep this up?” Scott panted. He was significantly more exhausted than the other wolves.

“Hour before the witches show themselves. Another half hour after that before midnight.” Stiles told him.

Right on cue, another shriek signaled the next batch of shades. 

“Ding, ding. Round three.” Stiles groaned. 

It was a much smaller batch, thankfully. Stiles hoped it was because they were running out of shades rather than some other more sinister reason. 

He was running out of paintballs.

He switched over to hard rubber once the last shade was marked and helped Lydia distract the shades from the tiring wolves. When one made its way to the stairs, Stiles emptied a full cartridge into it to slow it down before Jackson found it and ripped it apart from behind. 

Even though there were only seven shades this time, it took almost the full hour before they were gone.

At the end of it, Scott and Jackson were both on the floor, panting. Isaac sat on a chair, breathing deeply and trying not to get blood on the upholstery as he healed. Peter and Derek were both still on their feet.

Lydia looked the freshest of all of them, but that was Lydia. The only time he’d seen her not at pique condition was when she’d stepped out of the woods buck-ass naked after a three-day mental hiatus.

“I have to say, I am impressed. We expected to kill at least one of you by this point.” Mab looked around the living area, completely unfazed by the growling wolves.

“Sorry to disappoint.” Stiles gritted out. His side hurt and his arms were tired. 

“You haven’t been at all disappointing, Stiles.” She smiled.

“Can you seriously stop? I am not interested. Go away. God, you’re like the horrible lovechild of a telemarketer and Jehovah’s Witnesses.” 

She stopped smiling. “I was attempting to be polite. When my sisters get here, they will not be nearly so nice.”

She didn’t wait to be told to leave this time. 

“They’ll be here soon.” Peter said.

Stiles switched Lydia the pistol for the rifle and made sure he had a good amount of ammo before stepping into the room. 

“What’ll happen?” Isaac shifted nervously.

“The ritual needs open space to start. They’ll surround the house, move in as it gets closer to midnight.”

“So we find them and stop them. How many do we take down before the ritual is kaput?” Scott asked.

Stiles shook his head. “Not that simple. They’ll have protection, magical protection against interruptions. If we get passed those, if we can disrupt the ritual, there will be a backfire. It could be just as dangerous as the ritual itself depending on how long it takes us to stop it.”

“So what do we do?” Derek snapped. 

“Get out.” Stiles said calmly.

“What.” Not a question. Should have been a question, but Derek seemed a little too perturbed for question marks.

“Go, flee, get out of the blast range. I can only protect one of us from the backfire.”

“How.” Again with forgetting his question marks.

“Deaton gave me a poultice.” Because you don’t lie to angry werewolves. “It’ll protect me from the ritual backfiring.”

“But?” Isaac seemed to be as astute as Stiles at picking up on missing conjunctions.

Stiles sighed. He didn’t actually know what would happen, Deaton hadn’t been very specific. “Deaton… hinted that it would be potentially… detrimental to my health.”

There was a lot of argument all at once about how that was a Bad Plan, but Stiles tuned them out. He knew what he was getting into. Derek was conspicuously silent, though.

“Scott, I know what I’m doing, I have a plan.”

“You’re plan involves us leaving you alone to die!”

Stiles sighed. “It’s a risk, but if I don’t do it, we all die.”

“No.”

“Derek—“

“Give it to me.” He held his hand out.

“I have—“

“This is my territory, my house. It is my job to protect it and my Pack. Give me the poultice.”

The wolves all perked up. They must have heard something too faint for Stiles to pick up.

“They’re here.” Peter growled.

“We’re out of time, give me the poultice.”

“You can’t do it alone; let me help you.” Stiles pleaded. “I have a plan; I’ll stay safe, but you need help.”

Derek glared at him for a tense few seconds before snarling, “Fine. The rest of you, get going. We’ll finish up here and meet you after.”

Scott protested but Isaac and Jackson physically removed him from the house. Lydia and Peter followed, keys in hand.

“Be careful.” Lydia told him, firmly.

Stiles nodded, moving closer to Derek, slinging the rifle over his shoulder. They jumped to action when they heard the Camaro engine start. Stiles pulled out his phone and sent a text.

“What are you doing?”

“Asking a question.”

His phone beeped in response very quickly, which he appreciated, and he read it over quickly. He sighed, hoped the information was right, and then turned to Derek.

“Well?”

“Question answered, now, we need to stick together. If we act quickly, we won’t even need that poultice.”

“Your plan, Stiles. In as few words as possible.”

“You find, I shoot.”

Derek grunted. “What about the protection?”

“I’ve got it.” Stiles held up his phone.

Derek grunted and led the way out of the house. They moved quickly and as quietly as they could. Stiles stumbled occasionally over branches and roots and his own feet because that was his life and no he didn’t need to be stealthy when sneaking up on dangerous witches, why would he need that? 

Luck was on their side though, and the first trio of chanting witches they came across didn’t notice their presence. Stiles crouched down, steadied his stance, pulled the rifle out, and sighted his targets. He breathed in and held a few breaths to steady his hand and then believed. He wanted the shots to connect with their targets. He fired three shots, connecting solidly with three temples. The witches dropped, unconscious.

Stiles fist pumped the air in victory.

Derek ran over, broke the circle they’d worked. Stiles followed him over and watched the area, rifle at the ready, as Derek finished the job.

Stiles winced, “I wish we didn’t have to kill them.”

“I don’t like it any more than you do.” Derek hissed.

“I know. I still wish we didn’t have to.”

They moved on repeating the process with each trio. They found three more groups before Stiles looked at his watch. He let out a string of silent curses and tapped Derek on the shoulder. When he had the alpha’s attention, he gestured to his watch. It was almost midnight and they hadn’t found Mab.

Derek emitted a sub-sonic growl, if Stiles didn’t still have his hand on his shoulder, he wouldn’t have noticed at all, but he could feel the way Derek rumbled. 

“We’ll split it.” Stiles suggested quietly.

Derek scowled, clearly not happy that Stiles had to imbibe something that was potentially harmful in order to help.

“It’s the only choice. I don’t think even your wolfy healing will be enough without some protection, and we’re out of time.”

Derek kept scowling, but nodded. Stiles fished the poultice out of his bag, took half of it, and then handed it to Derek. He grimaced, it tasted really bad, but he kept it down. Derek also grimaced, but he handed the now-empty vial back and headed for the house.

They found Mab and two other witches, clearly more experienced since they watched as Derek and Stiles approached. There were no smiles.

“You will pay for their deaths, wolf.” Mab stated.

“You came here, challenged us; their deaths are your own fault.” Derek growled.

“We underestimated you Stiles Stilinski.” One of the others said, almost apologetically. “You are far stronger than we thought.”

“It’s a common mistake.” Stiles told her.

“You are strong. But you will not succeed as you have preciously.” The third lit a match. “The Witching Hour is upon us.” She lit the black candle and the three started chanting rapidly.

Stiles could feel the power growing. He fired a few shots at the witches, willing them to hit, but they bounced off a force that surrounded the women. Derek snarled and attacked, but he too was thrown aside, hitting a barrier. 

“The candle.”

Stiles whirled around. Before his stood a translucent figure of his mother. Not a shade. Not an illusion. His breath caught in his throat. His mother’s ghost stood before him. She smiled sweetly.

“How—“

“Their magic disturbed a lot of forces; they pulled from the images and memories of real people. We noticed.” She told him. “But you have to be quick, Stiles.”

“Th-the candle?”

“Shoot the candle; the spell will fail.” She told him gently.

Stiles jerked his head in a nod and turned to face the witches. No one seemed to notice the ghost of his mother standing over his shoulder. He took aim, trusted his mom, and fired. The candle shot off the table, extinguishing in the sudden movement, and the witches screamed.

The backfire was sudden and strong. It knocked Stiles off his feet and sent him flying back into a wall. The wall hurt, but he was a little more focused on burning sensation in his veins. He shouted in pain before gritting his teeth and remembered to breathe through it.

When the pain diminished, he looked around. Derek was hovering over him, glare firmly in place.

“You ok?” Stiles asked.

“Fine.” He grumbled. “You’re a moron.”

“I’m a genius, thank you very much.” Stiles took the offered hand up. He glanced around, but he didn’t see his mother’s ghost. He felt a gentle warmth, though, and he sensed it was her saying goodbye.

He did see three burned out bodies, however.

“Lovely.” He grimaced.

“Poultice worked.” 

“Apparently, but that was not a pleasant experience. Remind me never to do that again.”

“Like you’d listen.”

Stiles chuckled softly. “True.”

“I’ll call the others.” Derek pulled out his phone and dialed.

Stiles sent a text in the meantime. 

_TO: Leeloo  
12:06am_

_Ding Dong, the witch is dead. Thanks for the advice._

He listened absently as Derek talked to someone to explain it was safe and make sure everyone got out all right.

_FROM: Leeloo  
12:06am_

_Glad you’re alive.  
_


	5. Be Okay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt was Hoodie; O Dark Thirty_
> 
> _I apologize in advance if this chapter is a little meh compared to the others. Not much in the way of physical action occurs in this chapter, a lot of it is Stiles' introspection. I felt it was needed after last chapter. For reasons. Hope you enjoy it anyway._

Stiles stayed in his room, shut off his phone, and only spoke to his dad for three days after the witches’ attack. There were a lot of things about that night that did not sit well with him, and he wanted time to sort through his own thoughts before he had other people try to do it for him.

His side was almost fully healed; the cuts hadn’t been that bad to begin with. But as he’d suspected, his shirt and Hoodie were ruined. He’d stuffed them in a trash bag and took them out with the garbage as soon as he’d gotten home. He’d had a moment of silence for their sacrifice.

His dad knew something was bothering him, he was acting fairly obviously out of character, but Stiles had told him that he’d just had a really bad day and missed his mom. His dad nodded in understanding and offered an ear if he wanted to talk about it. Stiles was thankful, told him so, but he wouldn’t be talking to his dad about it because there was no way his dad would react well to hearing that Stiles spent 12 hours listening to his mother’s voice whisper insidious nothings into his ear only to run into the women herself—sort of—at the end of it.

That first day he’d tried to get her to come back, he wanted to talk to her, tell her everything, but she wasn’t answering. He suspected the cumulating series of events was the only reason she’d been able to show in the first place. He’d never be able to recreate them, and a part of him was very glad for that fact. Manipulating that much magical energy sounded like a terrifying concept.

He also thought about how Mab had tried over and over to get him to join her little book club. He didn’t consider himself a witch—wizard?—and he would never do what they had done, but she had seemed very insistent that he had the potential. And she wasn’t the only one. He recalled a few run-ins recently where someone had alluded to him holding some kind of power or strength. He wasn’t too sure he believed them. He didn’t feel any different than normal, and while the mountain ash circle had been awesome and exhilarating, according to Deaton, it was a very simple working that anyone with proper knowledge could do. 

He’d gone out on a limb and asked Leeloo how he’d gotten past her wards that day in the woods. She’d told him that he’d simply done it because he didn’t know he shouldn’t have been able to. He’d believed his feet would take him forward and so they had, right through her ward. He thought it was a little ridiculous, but Deaton had also said believe it would work and it would. Two different people offering the same advice… he’d tried it. It had worked. 

He didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, deciding to just leave it for now.

He’d spent the second day of solitude trying to deal with the fact that he was now an accomplice to twelve murders and directly responsible for three more. He’d been so sure at the time that it was the right thing to do, that it was the only thing that would stop them, but now that the clock wasn’t ticking, now that the axe wasn’t looming over his head… he wasn’t so sure. Surely there was _something_ else they could have done. 

He worried what it said about him that the first solution he’d jumped to had been murder.

He had to go through it all again, all his thought process and logical analysis, before he felt remotely better. One: They were trying to kill them. He acted in self-defense and the defense of others. Two: They were witches; they had magic and a lot of it. No mundane cell would have held them for long. Three: They were very bad people. Mab had practically admitted that they were up to no good and would use the ley line to wreck havoc.

He felt resolved that he’d had no other option. A little more introspection revealed that he really felt a lot better when he thought about how he’d done it in defense of others. Like when Jackson had torn the shade that had gone after him and Lydia on the stairs, he shredded it with a viciousness borne of the need to protect his girlfriend. Stiles had done what he’d done out of the need to protect his friends. 

He felt better knowing the first thing he’d jumped to had been Defend at All Costs. Sounded better than murder at any rate.

He spent almost the entire third day asleep. It was exhausting to wage war and then go through days worth of introspection and self-analysis. 

When he woke up, it was dark out. Stiles looked at his watch to check the time. He groaned and wished he could go back to sleep. 

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Stiles sat up. He glanced at his window again and saw a dark outline crouched on his ledge. He got up and opened the window. He had wondered how long it would take Scott to just break in.

But it wasn’t Scott.

“Derek?”

“You’re phone is off.”

“Yes it is.” Stiles agreed. “Why are you here at O Dark Thirty?”

Derek climbed in. “Don’t turn your phone off.”

Stiles sighed. “I needed some time to work through things, Derek. It’s not every day that my mother tries to convince me to kill myself and then I help kill fifteen people instead.”

Derek’s angry frown turned into a concerned frown. Minute differences, but Stiles could tell. 

“Don’t worry about it.” Stiles waved away his concern. 

“That’s really what the shade was telling you?”

Stiles sighed. “She never came out and said it, but she implied I’d be better off, that you’d all be better off, if I did.”

“It lied.”

“I know. Hence my continued existence.” Stiles gestured at himself to indicate his living state.

Derek sniffed the air. “How’s your side? I don’t smell blood.”

“It’s almost healed. They weren’t that bad to begin with. I got lucky.” Stiles nodded. He remembered the numerous scratches and gashes that the wolves had suffered. They’d all healed, but not a one of them looked shallow.

“Good.” Derek sat in his desk chair.

Clearly he was planning on sticking around for a little while, so Stiles sat on the edge of his bed. “How are the others?”

“Healed. Bugging me about you.” 

His annoyed tone made Stiles smirk. “They could have come themselves if they were worried.”

“I told them not to.” Derek told him. 

“And Scott listened?” 

Derek shrugged. “I told him you needed time.”

“I did. How’d—“

“Existential crisis has a very distinct scent.” Derek said calmly.

Stiles blinked. “You just made a joke.”

Derek just raised an eyebrow.

“You so did! I’ll have to blog about this moment, you realize.”

Derek rolled his eyes and tossed a bag at Stiles’ head. After a small amount of flailing, Stiles caught the bag and looked at Derek confused.

“It’s a replacement.” He shifted uncomfortably. 

Stiles opened the bag cautiously and pulled out a bright red Hoodie exactly like the one he’d had to toss. “You hate this Hoodie.”

“I don’t hate it, Stiles. I think it’s ridiculous. Like you.”

“That… I’m not sure how to take that comment, but thank you. For this.” He pulled the Hoodie over his head and resisted the urge to hum in contentment.

“You going to turn your phone on now?” Derek asked, changing the subject away from uncomfortable fuzzy feelings.

Stiles nodded. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. I get it.” He said and then left before Stiles had the chance to respond.

He pulled his phone off the charger and turned it on, waiting patiently for it to finish being bombarded with missed texts and calls.

When seven beeped at him, Stiles opened it up and scrolled through them.

_FROM: McCujo  
12:54am_

_u ok? u ran off b4 we came bak_

_FROM: Bro Thief  
1:08am_

_Derek said not to bother you yet, but I just wanted to say thanks. I’ll help keep Scott away until you’re ready for visitors._

_FROM: Katniss  
12:45pm_

_Made it through. No attacks. Hope you’re okay. Thank you._

_FROM: Athena  
12:50pm_

_You have three days before I send someone after you, Derek’s orders or no. We’re all worried._

The rest were missed calls from Scott.

Stiles sighed and then sent a mass text.

_TO: sourwolf; McCujo; Bro Thief; Athena  
4:21am_

_I’m good now. Sorry for the hiatus._

He curled up on his bed, nose buried in his new Hoodie, which smelled awesome, and felt good for the first time in three days.


	6. Recurring Characters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Jeep chooses a really bad time to die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I owe you all an apology. I had of course intended to continue with the Prompt Week as scheduled, but then I spent an entire weekend working on a film set and I was unable to write as I had intended. I am sorry. I will finish the story, because, like I said, it's a prequel to my main fic that I'm working on, but it might be a few days before the final chapter is up._
> 
> _This prompt was Jeep; Mid Morning._
> 
> _Enjoy!_

Derek paced restlessly in the living room of his old house. The territory breaches were getting more and more frequent and the string of ‘animal attacks’ was rising to ridiculous levels. The town was a mauled puppy away from another curfew, and he did not need any more disadvantages than he already had stacked against him.

“You’re going to wear a hole in the flooring if you don’t relax.” Peter told him calmly.

“It needs replacing anyway. As you keep reminding me.” Derek snapped.

“I only want what’s best for my alpha.” Peter remarked.

Derek stopped pacing when he heard a car engine get closer. It was Lydia’s Veloster. Derek relaxed marginally and listened. When the car got close enough, he heard two heartbeats and allowed himself to relax a bit more. She had Isaac with her.

Jackson ran to the porch, as much the eager puppy as he ever got, and waited for Lydia to closer her car door before running over to her and scooping her up in a hug.

“Where’s the fire? Has something happened?” Lydia asked, returning Jackson’s hug, looking concerned.

“They’re pushing closer to town. We caught traces of their scent near the outskirts.” Jackson told her.

“Where?” Isaac asked.

“Sheriff’s office, the lacrosse field, and the clinic.” Derek answered. 

Isaac frowned. “Why the sheriff’s office? We tend to avoid that particular building.”

“Not all of us.” Lydia said.

Scott and Stiles.

Derek wasn’t sure whether or not Scott and Stiles would be targeted. He really wasn’t even sure whether or not Stiles was Pack. Scott definitely wasn’t. Yet. It was a work in progress.

It was weird to have that ambiguity floating above his head, but Stiles was an annoying unknown. He was Scott’s best friend and had helped the stubborn wolf with gaining control, but he’d readily allied with Derek and his Pack when Scott had joined Derek against the Kanima and Gerard. When Scott turned out to be working with Gerard, Stiles had been as surprised as everyone else. When Scott declared himself separate from the Pack, Derek hadn’t been sure if that applied to Stiles as well. 

Stiles, himself, didn’t seem to know either.

If they were targets, they’d have to keep a closer eye on them.

“Scott and Stiles?” Isaac asked.

“They could also be checking the sheriff’s office for news of their activity. Making sure they aren’t attracting too much attention?” Jackson supplied.

“Or that they are attracting the right amount of attention.” Peter countered. “If they bring the hunters down on us, that would probably not end well.”

Derek nodded. “To be safe, we’ll check on Scott and Stiles.”

“If they’re being targeted, shouldn’t we let them know what’s going on?” Lydia asked. 

“If they aren’t targets, telling them would make them targets. We’ll tell them if we have to, but hold off until we know for sure.” Derek told her. 

As the human, he occasionally had to explain his reasoning before she’d agree to follow orders. It was occasionally frustrating, but he’d grudgingly admit, it was probably for the best too. Made him stop and think what was best before acting.

Lydia sighed, annoyed, but agreed.

“Scott works at the clinic later.” Isaac offered. “But I can shoot him a text now, see if he’s been kidnapped recently.”

“Do it.” Derek led the group back inside. “See if he knows where Stiles is too.”

Isaac typed out a text quickly, and Derek ignored the building tension as everyone waited for the response. 

When his phone beeped, Isaac read the text out loud. “He says he’s at home playing Mass Effect. Invited me over if I wanted to hang out before work.” 

“Go.” Derek nodded. “Did he say anything about Stiles?”

“Asking now.” Isaac said as he typed.

The phone beeped.

Isaac frowned at it.

“What?”

“He says he doesn’t know where Stiles is, but that he was going on a date.”

“A date?” Jackson scoffed. “Stiles?”

“Don’t be rude.” Lydia smacked him playfully.

“I’m with Jackson on this one.” Isaac said. “Stiles couldn’t get a date to save his life.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “Go to Scott’s. We’ll find Stiles and make sure he hasn’t gotten himself into trouble.”

Peter smirked. Derek ignored him.

“Scott said he wasn’t sure where—“

“Scott couldn’t find his ass with both hands.” Lydia snapped. 

“We’ll find that piece of crap Jeep he drives.” Derek said. “It’s loud enough we should be able to hear it across town.”

~*~

Stiles turned the engine off and listened to the Jeep click as the engine cooled. He looked over to his passenger and smirked as she shoved a hat stylishly on her head.

“Do you really think that’ll work?”

“People see what they want to see Stiles, they won’t notice anything weirder than a girl with a penchant for hats.” She smiled brightly as she artfully arranged her white-blond locks to make the hat look a little less ridiculous. 

“Alright, but if bring hipsters down upon us, I might not ever forgive you.” 

“I wasn’t aware Beacon Hills had a hipster population.” She laughed as they both got out of the Jeep.

“Its small, but vicious. Like blue-jays.”

She wrapped her arm around his as they walked across the parking lot. “Don’t worry, Stiles. I’m sure we’ll be hipster free.”

“I hope so.” He said emphatically. “There are only so many traumatic experiences a guy can have in one month.” 

“Oh yes. Faeries, vampires, witches—“

“Elves.”

She smirked. “Not to mention werewolves. You’ve had quite the month, haven’t you?”

“At least I have a theory as to why this place is a Hellmouth.” Stiles sighed.

“The ley lines. Yes. I could have told you that.”

“You could have saved me from becoming vampire chow? I have scars from that night!” Stiles whined.

“You didn’t ask.” She reminded him. 

“That’s it, you’re buying the first round.” Stiles said as he opened the door. 

The little bell chimed and a bored looking woman stepped out from the back room. “Morning.”

“Good morning.” Stiles smiled.

“Bit early in the day for this, isn’t it?” She asked.

“It’s never too early to drown our sorrows in a nice cold one.” Stiles said as he moved to the counter.

The woman looked them both over dubiously. “Whatever. What can I get you?”

~*~

“And we can’t just text Stiles, because…?” Lydia asked as she slid into her car.

“My nephew is no doubt using this as a training exercise.” Peter drawled as he passed her Veloster. 

Lydia shot him a glare. She still didn’t trust Peter, for obvious reasons, and Derek agreed with her choice. His uncle may no longer be completely insane, but he was still a few fries short of a happy meal, and Derek wasn’t sure what his ulterior motives were.

“Jackson, you’re with Lydia, but keep out of sight.” Derek ordered. There were a few downsides to Jackson being considered dead, and he didn’t want to attract unwanted attention. 

“We’ll let you know if we find anything.” Lydia said before starting the engine and driving off.

Derek and Peter started at Stiles’ house and tried to follow the most recent scent of the Jeep. They found it fairly quick and Derek made a mental note to tell Stiles to get his coolant leak fixed. They followed the Jeep’s scent as it drove to the preserve, a few miles away from the turn off to the Hale house. Once there, a new scent was added to the mix.

“Well that’s interesting.” Peter inhaled deeply. “His date, you think?”

“If it is, it isn’t human.” Derek growled. Stiles may actually be in danger.

“Not a wolf either, though.” Peter agreed.

“Come on.” Derek started off after the Jeep’s scent again, this time headed to town.

They were to the edge of the main part of town when Derek got a text.

_FROM: Lydia  
11:02am_

_Jackson picked up a trail, but he won’t stop sneezing long enough to tell me what it is._

“Son of a bitch.” Derek grumbled.

“That boy is a weirdness magnet.” Peter commented, reading over his shoulder.

~*~

Stiles and Leeloo leaned against the Jeep as they dug into their ice cream.

“Drowning our sorrows?” Leeloo raised an eyebrow at him.

“My bad month, you’re relationship ending.”

“I ended it with Avorndir. Not the other way around.”

Stiles shrugged. “Doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy some break up ice cream.”

She laughed quietly and took another bite of her triple chocolate.

“It is a good way to celebrate, I suppose.” She commented.

“Fine. You’re celebrating; I’m drowning my sorrows. Happy?”

“You don’t seem particularly upset.”

Stiles nodded sagely. “Ice cream cures all.” He took a big bite out of his chocolate chip cookie dough and hummed in pleasure.

Suddenly, Leeloo straightened and looked around, face drawn in concern.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Stiles resisted the urge to call her Lassie and ask if Timmy was stuck in a well.

“Something’s… wrong. We should get out of here.” She said quietly.

Stiles didn’t argue; he took one last bite of his ice cream before tossing it and hopping in the Jeep. He started her up as Leeloo climbed in, and then drove away from the strip center as fast as he dared.

“Anywhere we should be going?” 

“Away from people.”

“Great.” He drove faster.

~*~

“Faeries?”

“Yes.”

“Really? Faeries?” 

“Yes, Jackson. Faeries.” Derek snarled over the phone.

“As if we didn’t have enough to worry about.” Lydia muttered.

“Where does the trail pick up?”

Lydia made a pensive hum. “I think about four miles west of the strip center. We were headed there when Jackson picked it up.”

“Which direction does it go?”

“Hell if I know; I couldn’t stop sneezing as soon as I picked it up.”

Derek growled. He’d have to teach that boy how to focus. “Try again. We’ll meet you there.” He hung up.

“Isaac wants to know if he should bring Scott.” Peter told him, reading from a text on his phone.

Scowling, Derek reluctantly nodded. Peter quickly keyed his message and hit send as they made their way north and west along the outskirts of town. When they caught up with Jackson and Lydia, the wolf was sneezing and cursing violently.

“Enough—“sneeze—“of this bull—“sneeze, sneeze, sneeze—“shit!” Jackson leapt aside and rubbed at his nose roughly to get the scent out of his sensitive olfactory system. 

Derek stepped up where he left off and took a few gentle wiffs. It was strong, he did sneeze, but he managed smaller inhales in order to reduce exposure. It seemed to be multiple trails following the same line; he picked up a few unfamiliar scents, but he did recognize one.

“Crap. I knew we should have killed her.” Derek swore.

“Killed who?” Isaac asked. He and Scott had just arrived in Scott’s mom’s car.

“The damned faerie that took the sheriff two weeks ago.” Derek snapped. “It’s back and it brought friends.”

“A faerie took the sheriff?” Scott looked confused, but that seemed, to Derek, to be his default setting.

“Did Stiles not tell you?” Peter asked with a small smile. “He and Nephew Mine swept in to save the day. I heard it was glorious.”

Scott fidgeted, which either meant no, or he couldn’t remember if it came up during one of Stiles’ rants. 

“That was the last full moon wasn’t it?” Isaac asked.

Derek nodded. “We need to find Stiles before it does.”

“Why is it after Stiles?” Scott asked. “He’s human.”

Lydia shook her head. “Humans are always targets for supernatural creatures, Scott. Like gazelle for lions.”

“A simplistic explanation, but accurate.” Peter remarked. “Not to mention, Stiles took something that the faerie wanted. That sort of behavior is not looked upon kindly.”

“Can we take this discussion on the road?” Jackson asked. “I thought we were supposed to be finding the loser before Tinkerbelle does.”

Derek nodded and concentrated, trying to find either Stiles’ scent or the Jeep’s. The smell of magic was overwhelming, though, and he couldn’t get much of anything else. Frustrated, he whirled on Scott.

“Did he say anything about where he was going?”

“Just that she’d recently gotten out of a relationship and he was taking her out; he didn’t say where.” Scott replied, equally frustrated that all he got was the scent of faerie.

“There’s an ice cream shop in the strip center.” Lydia offered.

Derek led the way. 

When they got to the strip center it was just in time to see the Jeep peel out of the lot like the hounds of hell were on its heels. Derek might have been more amused by the analogy if it weren’t for the fact that there were five trails of light zipping after the Jeep.

Faeries.

~*~

“What’s going on?” Stiles looked in his rearview mirror, but didn’t see anything other than the road.

Leeloo took her hat off and ran a worried hand through her hair. “They’re after you. Why are they after you?”

“Who are they?”

“Faeries.” She glanced out the rear window and winced. “A whole posse of faeries.”

“How many are we talking?” Stiles gave the Jeep a bit more gas.

“Five.” She started chanting under her breath.

“Why are they after me? I haven’t done anything against their rules!” Stiles took a hard left and patted the Jeep on the dash when she didn’t flip over.

“Trying to concentrate here Stiles.” She muttered and then continued chanting.

“What are you doing?”

“Keeping them off of us long enough to get out of the city!” 

Stiles still couldn’t see anything in his review, but he trusted Leeloo to know when something magical was chasing them. He mumbled sweet nothings to his baby and begged her to go faster. 

They weren’t too far from the forest; just a little further down the road from there was the entrance to the preserve and the Hale house. That was his goal. A little backup was a very good thing.

“Do you smell that?” Leeloo asked, pausing her chant.

He did. An acrid, burning smell. “No. Nononononono!”

Steam started pouring from the hood. He looked at his instrument panel and groaned in dismay when he saw that his temperature gage was through the roof. He was forced to pull over when he heard a popping noise from beneath the hood.

“We can’t stop here.” Leeloo said quickly before starting up her chanting again.

His Jeep sputtered and died on the side of the road. He gave it a token try at starting, but no dice. He hung his head on the steering wheel. “She won’t start. We’ll have to run.”

Stiles flung his door open and ran to the passenger side. He got Leeloo’s door open for her since she had added hand movements to her chanting and quickly unbuckled her seat belt. He helped her balance as she got out of the Jeep, and then guided her to the other side headed to the forest.

Something hit him, nearly knocking him down, but he managed to keep his footing and keep moving. He pulled Leeloo to the front of the Jeep and made sure to keep her between himself and the iron Jeep. He silently willed her to chant faster, because he wasn’t sure anything else could help them at this point.

“Where’s a park bench when you need one?” He whispered, small smile on his lips. Humor, after all, was amazing at distracting him from the fact he was probably about to die.

He got the smirk he was looking for, and then something changed in her expression. A real smile lit up her features. “I think you have something a bit better than a park bench.”

Snarls, like music to his ears, filled the air as the entire Pack, plus Scott, leapt out from behind the Jeep to circle him and Leeloo. Scott chose to act as hood ornament, so it put him right in Stiles’ line of sight.

“Awesome timing, bro.”

“Lydia’s in the car behind us. Go!”

Stiles was about to do as he was told, when giggling floated on the breeze. Stiles really hated that noise. He turned, though he still kept Leeloo behind him, because he hated not seeing what was happening when it involved potential death and/or dismemberment.

The faeries hovered above the ground in front of the wolves. The faeries that had taken his dad were among them. The others were on either side of her and they looked less than pleasant. Armed to the teeth with what looked like either stone or bone weapons, they looked ready for war.

“He runs with wolves, indeed. You sure can pick them E.” The one to her immediate left said with a smirk.

“I have good taste, what can I say.” She licked her lips, revealing delicately pointed teeth. “And look, his accomplice is here too. I do so love a party.”

Derek snarled. 

“Articulation leaves something to be desired.” Another stated.

“It’s a wolf, Aodán, were you expecting Shakespeare?” 

Laughter bubbled up from the faeries; mocking and cruel, they brandished weapons and seemed to care very little for the angry werewolves between them and their goal.

“Call off your beasts and they need not be harmed. Your crimes are your own and you will answer for them; these creatures need not interfere.” One of the faeries said clearly, pointing his obsidian axe at Stiles.

Stiles took a small step forward, not even a full step; just enough to acknowledge that he wasn’t a simpering fool. “What crimes am I supposed to have committed?”

“Willfully and knowingly bringing of Cold Iron into a Sihde seat of power, the malicious and destructive use of said bane therein, and the wrongful theft of property. For these, your punishment is death.”

The wolves around him snarled, unhappy with that answer. Stiles was also unhappy with that answer. Dying seemed like a rather crappy way to start his day.

“Defend your actions, Stiles. They’re faeries, they obey certain rules, and you didn’t do anything wrong.” Leeloo whispered in his ear. 

Stiles bobbed his head minutely in agreement. From what he’d read of faerie law and custom, he _hadn’t_ done anything wrong. If he’d done those things unprovoked, then yes, they’d have a case, but he hadn’t. It was just ever so slightly possible they didn’t know that little detail though.

“In regards to my offenses, I was not acting without provocation.”

“Be silent!” His father’s captor—E? that had to be short for something—hissed. 

“I have the right to defend that which is mine!” Stiles spoke over her repeated attempts to silence him as he continued. “She invaded my home, abducted my father. I entered her home with the intent of retrieving him; she refused and attacked. Any action I took thereafter was the result of her refusing to return him to me and in my own defense and the defense of my friend. Had she given him back, I would have left peacefully.”

Stiles was rather proud of himself for not stumbling over any of that. He gave himself a mental pat on the back for not sounding like a fool. Leeloo squeezed his hand reassuringly. 

There was now rapid discussion among the faeries. 

“Eibhlín! Does the boy speak the truth?” The faerie that had addressed him earlier now rounded on the faerie that had started this mess. He knew E had to have been short for something.

Eibhlín screeched and all of the wolves flinched slightly, Leeloo dug her nails into Stiles hand she gripped it so hard, and Stiles didn’t blame them. It was harsh even to his human ears. 

“Stole from me! Smash and shatter and splinter my pretty little traps, my pretty little gixies set free!” She keened. “Pay for it! Rend his flesh from the _bone!_ ” She launched herself at Stiles.

In that instant, several things happened at once. One, Stiles grabbed Leeloo and pulled her down with him practically shoving her under the iron chassis of the Jeep to avoid the vengeful faerie. Two, Derek launched into the air to meet the faerie head on. Three, the other faeries fucking left without so much as a by your leave. And four, dozens of bright lights zipped out from the forest to join in the confusion.

The next instant, Stiles just watched, shocked, as the dozens of lights helped Derek to fight the raging faerie. They would dart in and out, quickly and randomly, so that almost every attack she made toward Derek—or anyone else—fell short or aborted before it could finish. In the meantime, Derek took the opportunity to tear into her, somehow managing to never hit one of the glowing lights. It was a savage attack, and it should have been over quickly, but she healed faster than any wolf Stiles had ever seen. He abruptly came to the realization that it would take more than a werewolf’s claws—alpha or no—to take her out.

Stiles stood, ignoring Scott and Isaac’s protests, and made his way to the back of the Jeep. He threw open the back hatch, drew out the tire iron, and then made his way to where Derek had the faerie engaged, coming up behind her.

He hefted the tire iron, aimed, and said, “Out of the way little faeries.” Before swinging the tire iron with all his strength into her head.

The sickening crack left behind silence in its wake.

~*~

The damned faerie fell limp, skull caved in. 

Derek looked up at Stiles and watched, slightly amazed, as the kid dropped the tire iron and knelt down to his level. Stiles looked over him with a critical eye for injury, though Derek could already feel what little damage there was already begin to heal. 

The cocktail of emotions that came wafting off of Stiles read concern, anger, relief, and just a touch of fear. It was enough to almost overpower the stench of faerie. Almost. 

Derek sneezed. 

A grin split across Stiles’ face and he clapped Derek on the shoulder before he stood up. It was then that Derek noticed that all of the little faeries—as Stiles had called them; he didn’t know what they actually were—were now hovering around Stiles. The kid seemed to notice them too, because his grin went from amused to confused as he walked, trailing little balls of light like ducklings.

Derek watched as Stiles walked unconcerned among his betas until he reached the Jeep. He crouched down again and offered his hand to the girl he’d been protecting, his date, Derek supposed. Stiles pulled her to her feet and she gave him a big hug.

“Much better than a park bench.” She told him quietly, smiling.

Scott’s face broke into one of recognition. Apparently he knew who the girl was.

Except, she wasn’t just a girl. If her scent didn’t give her away, the pointy ears certainly did. 

“An elf.” Peter sounded vaguely impressed. “My, my, but the boy does have good taste.”

As if realizing that he was surrounded by the Pack, Stiles disengaged from the hug and turned to face the others.

“Hey guys.” He said awkwardly. “So. Nice timing.”

“We were looking for you anyway.” Lydia had joined them.

Stiles frowned, concern and curiosity—and Derek swore Stiles was the only one who actually smelled like curiosity—now dominating his scent. “Why? What’s up?” 

“Caught the faerie’s scent.” Derek said before anyone else could. “Thought they might be after you.”

The others took their lead from Derek and didn’t mention the Alpha Pack. Derek wasn’t convinced that Scott and Stiles were targets yet, so it was better to keep them in the dark. For their own safety.

“Keen werewolf instincts.” Stiles told him. “Thanks.”

Scott poked at the little balls of light. “What are these anyway?”

“Gixies.” The elf said. “Stiles and Derek freed them from Eibhlín’s hold while they were rescuing the sheriff. They owe them both a debt.”

“Uh. Cool. I guess?” Stiles glanced at the gixies. “Are they just going to follow me around now?”

She shook her head. “No. They just want to let you know how to contact them, should you ever need their help.”

At her words, the gixies all chattered in miniscule voices that Derek couldn’t understand. Stiles apparently did though, because he nodded as if listening intently, and then the lights flew away as quick as they’d come.

“So.” Lydia slid up beside Stiles not quite leaning on the hood of the Jeep. “Who is this?”

“Oh my god, rude!” Stiles thumped himself on the head. “I’m such a spaz. Sorry.” He pulled the amused elf a bit further into the open. “Everyone this is Daumelladnel.” She looked at him, a little surprised smile on her face. “I’ve been practicing.” He shrugged. “But you can totally call her Leeloo. I do. Much easier.”

“I didn’t hear anything that sounded like Leeloo in that.” Jackson half sneered. 

Stiles sighed. “Leeloo, that’s Jackson. He’s culturally deprived. This fiery little minx is Lydia.” The girls gave each other an assessing glance, as all girls tended to do—the female of the species was really more wolf-like than Derek would admit out loud—and everyone ignored Jackson’s possessive growl. “The curly haired pup is Isaac. The eldest and, by far, creepiest of the group is Peter. And then Derek, Alpha and sourwolf extraordinaire.”

Derek wondered if Stiles realized he’d introduced them in order of lowest to highest in ranking. If he had, then it meant Stiles might be closer to thinking of himself as Pack than Derek realized. That didn’t stop him from glaring at that stupid nickname.

“Pleasure to meet you all.” She directed her comment to Derek, which meant she was at least a little familiar with how werewolf politics worked. 

Derek saw the way that Stiles’ stance was still protective of the elf. It seemed that he wasn’t sure whether or not she would be welcome on Derek’s territory, but he was willing to defend her if Derek decided to take offense. 

It irked him a little.

Stiles had that tendency. 

Deciding it truly wasn’t worth even a token objection at this point, Derek nodded his head. He watched Stiles visibly relax.

The next second, in a very Stiles manner, the kid’s scent changed from relieved and happy to depressed and frustrated so fast that it was a little jarring. He flailed a little and knocked Scott off before running to the driver’s side and popping the catch to release the hood.

“Oh man. Come on, don’t be dead.” He muttered to himself.

“What’s up dude?” Scott asked.

“She overheated, that’s why we stopped.” Stiles was looking frantically under the hood, maybe trying to see if there’d be a glowing neon sign pointing to the problem.

“You have a coolant leak.” Derek supplied.

Stiles looked at him.

Derek sighed and walked over to the Jeep. “I smelled it while we were looking for you. If it stalled out, then you either popped a hose or cracked the radiator. Fixable if it’s the former, but the radiator would need a full engine rebuild or—since it’d be really expensive for a car this old—a new car.”

Leeloo patted him on the shoulder as Stiles looked forlornly at the Jeep. Deep sadness rolled off of him. All of the wolves picked up on it, Derek could tell by their shifted stances. Scott was the only one who actually moved to wrap his arms around Stiles in a comfort hug.

“It was his mom’s.” Isaac whispered, only just loud enough for Derek to hear.

Derek nodded, understanding. 

Lydia seemed to take this as her cue to round up the rest of the Pack and get them back to the house, because she began ushering loitering werewolves into her car, even Peter, and then drove off with a wave.

Scott sighed. “You should probably call a tow. Get a mechanic to check it out.”

“Hold the vicious lizard this time.” Stiles nodded, closing the hood.

Derek realized Stiles really put up with a lot of shit for a human, and he kept coming back for more it seemed, because his best friend was a werewolf and his newest friend—girlfriend?—was an elf, and that meant he was in it up to his neck whether he liked it or not. 

Derek couldn’t help but feel a little responsible for wrecking any chance Stiles had at a normal life.

“I can look at it.” His mouth offered before conferring with his brain.

Stiles looked at him again. “Y-you can?”

Derek shrugged. “I can at least tell you which it is.”

“Thanks.”

With help from Scott and Leeloo, they got the Jeep to the Hale house. Derek got to work inspecting it as Stiles and Leeloo went inside to chat with the others. Scott went in and came back out with Isaac, headed for work, but other than that, it seemed everyone was content to stay in the house and talk while he tinkered with a rusty engine.

He caught a wisp of Stiles’ scent and heard his slightly erratic heart beat just before Stiles came up to the Jeep. “So what’s the verdict?”

“Looks like it’s just the hose.” Derek got a nice strong whiff of relief off of Stiles. “I can fix it up if you get your hands on the part.”

“Thank you.” He said, voice thick with emotion.

“Don’t worry about it.” Derek rubbed the grease off his hands with a rag. “It’s early yet. If you order the part now, you’ll probably get it tomorrow.”

Stiles nodded, shouting over his shoulder as he went to bum a ride from Lydia. “Thanks again, Derek. You’re a life saver.”

“Anytime.” Stiles was already out of earshot.


	7. Cruel to be Kind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles tries to repay Derek for his help with awesome cookies, Derek handles it like a sourwolf. Lydia disapproves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _So. You guys rock. I love you all and all your awesome comments and kudos and bookmarks. Gah! I even got fic rec'd on Tumblr, those were some intense feels. I flailed. Not ashamed to admit that._
> 
> _Anyway! Last chapter!_
> 
> _Prompt: Pack; Evening._

Stiles was only without his Jeep for two days. Derek had been quick with the fix and gave him back his baby without costing him an arm and a leg. The part hadn’t been exactly cheap, but Derek hadn’t charged him for labor, so that was awesome in Stiles’ book.

After conferring via text with Leeloo for the better part of those two days, Stiles decided that if he wouldn’t take money than the sourwolf would have to take his tasty, tasty treats as payment.

Stiles headed to the grocery store on a mission. He was about to make the most delicious cookies known to wolfkind, so he had to pick up a few things that he—obviously—couldn’t just keep around the house. Nosy sheriff’s had a habit of snooping for things that were decidedly not on the approved menu.

Bags in hand, Stiles walked out of the store and threw it all—except for the eggs, one has to be careful with eggs—into the Jeep and then raced home. He wanted to finish before his dad got off work. 

Stiles cranked his tunes and sang along as he danced about his kitchen making cookies from scratch. It was, perhaps unwise to completely block out one of his sensory inputs with loud music, but it was so part of the recipe. It was even written down on the card—that Stiles had memorized years ago, but still kept a hold of—in pristine handwriting. _“Enjoy the making of joy, Stiles. That’s the real secret.”_

He started using wooden spoons as drumsticks while the first batch was baking in the oven, banging happily on counters, cabinets, and pots and pan to the rhythm of good old 80s hair metal. So distracted was Stiles, that he didn’t hear the car pull up, or the front door open until the music suddenly shut off.

Stiles whipped around, wooden spoons still in hand, to see his dad staring at him, amused.

“Hey, Dad.” Stiles quickly put the spoons back on the counter where they belonged. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“I am, in fact.” His dad didn’t sound upset. “Imagine my surprise when I got a call about a noise complaint for my own address.”

Stiles ducked his head a bit sheepishly. “Oops.”

His dad allowed a grin to split his face and he shook his head. “Try to keep it under a hundred decibels, okay kiddo?”

“Yes, sir.” Stiles saluted him.

“Save me some cookies.”

“Dad…”

“I could write you up.”

“Three cookies. No more.”

“Good boy. I’m going back to work now.” He switched music back on, but lowered the volume before he left.

Stiles jumped back into his dancing until the cookies were ready to be taken out of the oven. He put them on a cooling rack, popped in the next batch, and picked up his wooden spoons.

When the final batch was removed from the oven to the cooling rack, Stiles cut the music. He found an empty tin big enough and began filling it with cookies. Once all but three were in the tin, he closed it and brought it out to his Jeep. He started the Jeep, pulled out of the drive, and headed to the Hale house, music blaring because he could.

When he arrived, he gathered the tin under his arm and hopped out of the Jeep, dancing his way to the door to music he played in his head. Because why not? Today was a good day. Fresh baked cookies, newly fixed Jeep, and doing something for the Pack that didn’t involve scary beasts of the night. Nothing could bring down his mood.

Then again…

Stiles should know better.

Derek’s scowl was firmly in place and his eyes flashed alpha red as he intercepted Stiles before he could make it to the porch.

“What are you doing here?”

“Cookies!” Stiles held the tin aloft, grin still firmly in place, hoping to make Derek stop glaring daggers. “You know, as a thank you for fixing the Jeep.”

There was a ruckus from inside the house and Stiles tried to look around Derek’s hulking form to see what was happening, but Derek grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him toward the Jeep. Stiles squawked in protest, nearly dropping the cookies as he lost his footing. Only the fact that Derek still had a firm grip on his shoulder prevented him from face-planting. 

“Whoa, dude. What’s going on? You’re mangling my shirts, let go.”

“You need to leave.” Derek said stiffly, aggravation clear in his voice.

“Is something up? What can I—“

“Nothing. Go home, Stiles. You don’t belong here.” Derek shoved him roughly.

What the hell?

“Derek—“

“Go. Home!” He roared and stalked off, back up to the house.

What the hell?

Stiles watched Derek barge into the house and slam the door shut. Stiles sat and watched the dust and ash settle for a few seconds before looking around, as if hoping to find some sort of context clue as to why the hell Derek had essentially thrown him out.

He saw nothing. The forest didn’t seem different, but he didn’t have werewolf super senses so it was possible he was missing something. But, other than the normal noises of a forest, Stiles didn’t hear anything. Whatever ruckus had occurred was now silent and no one else ventured forth from within.

Stiles looked down at the cookies in his hands, back up to the house, and felt a little sick.

Rejection, being ignored, was something Stiles should be used to. He’d gone through it again and again over the years with Lydia, with lacrosse, with Scott, too, recently. 

But not so much with Derek and the Pack. He’d gotten used to being able to swing by and not be ignored.

It was worse than that even, Stiles realized as he opened the door to the Jeep. He hadn’t been ignored.

_You don’t belong here._

Had he overstepped some boundary? He hadn’t ever been told to leave when he came, in large part because when he did drive up to the Hale house it was so he could give the Pack some information or to help against whatever was attacking the town. He thought back and tried to remember a time he’d just stopped by to say hey or hang out or anything that wasn’t monster related. 

He couldn’t.

So… had he crossed a boundary? Had he assumed that this was a thing he could do when, in fact, he was unwelcome when their hairy hides didn’t depend on his knowledge/presence?

_You don’t belong here._

Well. He guessed that answered that question.

~*~

As Derek watched Stiles drive away he breathed a sigh of relief and regret.

“You’re an idiot.” Lydia told him, voice cold with disapproval.

“It’s for his own good.” Derek told her. Again.

She scoffed. “You’d better hope he forgives you, or you’re going to have a much bigger problem on your hands than a measly pack of Alphas.”

Lydia turned on her heel and walked back over to Isaac and Jackson as they hovered, whining and growling, around the small box that had been waiting on the porch that evening. 

Derek fought to suppress his wolf at the thought of what was in that box, but it hardened his resolve. Pushing Stiles away was for his own good.

Derek had to protect his Pack.

Even if that meant losing him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _For those of you now plotting my death, just remember that there is a whole other story that comes after this. If you kill me, you don't get to read it. So there._
> 
> _Also, as a side note. It is not Gweneth Paltrow's head in the box. I promise._


End file.
